THE CHALLENGE 
^- OF TO-DAY + 




FIRST STATE CONVEN 



OF METHODIST MEN 



COLUMBUS, OHIO.MARCH 1718,19,1915 



Class 

Book 

Copyright 



THE CHALLENGE OF 
TO-DAY 

THE MESSAGE OF THE FIRST STATE 
CONVENTION OF METHODIST MEN 

HELD AT 

COLUMBUS, OHIO, MARCH 17, 18, 19, 1915 



EDITED BY 

BISHOP WILLIAM F. ANDERSON 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



Copyright, 1915, by 
THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 



m ~8 {SI5 



CI.A406208 



DEDICATED 
TO THE 

BUILDERS OF THE KINGDOM 

IN OHIO 
AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD 



SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF 
THE CONVENTION 



EVANGELISM 

TO WIN MEN TO CHRIST. 

TRAINING 

TO MAKE MEN LIKE CHRIST. 

MISSIONS 

TO SEND MEN OUT FOR CHRIST. 

SOCIAL SERVICE 

TO DRAW MEN TOGETHER IN CHRIST. 



Contents 



PART I 
The Challenge 

PAGE 



The Present World Situation 17 

John R. Mott 

The Uplift of a Race 30 

Patrick J. Maveety 
Winning America 35 

Freeman D. Bovard 
A Saloonless America 41 

Howard H. Russell 
A Saloonless Ohio 43 

Wayne B. Wheeler 
The Christian Motive in Social Reform 49 

George P. Eckman 
The Challenge to the Trained Youth of the Church 54 

Harris Franklin Rail 
The European War and Its Bearing on Christian Missions 61 

John R. Mott 

PART II 

The Resources 

The Transcendent Importance of Prayer 75 

John R. Mott 

Prayer Indispensable to World Winners 81 

W. E. Doughty 

A Christian Man's Training for Life Service 90 

Thomas Nicholson 

Supporting the Leader 94 

W. H. MiUer 

A Christian Man and His Money 95 

A. E. Cory 

The Christian Man and the Community 100 

Harry F, Ward 

PART III 
The Response 

Laborers for the Harvest 107 

Fennell P. Turner 

and four Student Volunteers 



7 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



MiBsioNABY Values — Messages prom the Foreign Field 114 

WiUiam F. Oldham 

James M. Taylor, of South America 

Lewis E. Linzell, of India 

H. F. Rowe, of China 

J. Waskom Pickett, of India 

The Church a Community Force 125 

Worth M. Tippy 
Luther B. Freeman 

The Redemption of Jim 134 

W. M. Gilbert 

The Making of a Country Parish 136 

C. M. McConneU 
Harry B. Fisher 

An Adequate Program of Missionary Education 141 

George F. Sutherland 
The Church Adequately Financed 146 

J. B. Trimble 

The Local Church Related to the World 150 

Somerville Light 

PART IV 
The Outlook 

The Two Americas 155 

Homer C. Stuntz 

Around the World with a Missionary Camera 162 

S. Earl Taylor 

An Awakened Asia 181 

George Sherwood Eddy 
Some International Triumphs op the Cross 190 

Homer C. Stuntz 

The End op the Convention the Beginning of the Enterprise . . 195 

William F. Anderson 
Convention Policy and Declaration 202 

PART V 
The Survey 

Presenting Some Religious and Social Conditions in Ohio 207 

The Church and Its Efficiency 
The Church and Its Commimity 
The Church and Its Wider Parish 

PART VI 
Convention Organization and Notes 

Committees in Charge 245 

Program 246 

Notes 248 



8 



Foreword 



That three thousand four hundred and fifty-six men dur- 
ing these busy days and in these hard times should leave 
their homes, go at their own expense of travel and entertain- 
ment for three days from all parts of Ohio to Columbus, and 
pay besides a registration fee in order to become a member 
of a convention, is of itself a fact of tremendous significance. 
It may be questioned whether business or politics or social 
life or anything else could attract so large a body of men 
for so long a time from their business and the imperative 
demands of everyday life. The Convention of Methodist 
Men for Ohio holds the record in this respect. Viewed as 
an event, it is a fine tribute to the emphasis which our men 
place upon the predominance of the moral and spiritual 
elements of life. 

Although it was a Convention of Methodist Men, there was 
no thought on the part of anybody concerned that the spirit 
of the gathering should be held in any sense to purely 
denominational interests. Indeed, to have attempted to do 
so would have been utterly contradictory to the spirit of our 
great Church, for Methodism, when rightly understood, is 
as broad a movement as the Christian centuries have re- 
corded. Fortunate indeed it is that the spirit of our founder 
has imparted itself so generally to the movement into which 
he put his life: '^I desire a league offensive and defensive 
with every soldier of Jesus Christ." "Is thine heart right, 
as my heart is with thy heart? If it be, give me thine hand," 
finds unique expression in the organization of the early 
societies of Methodism and in the growing spirit of our 
Church even to the present hour. From that day until this 
day the sons and daughters of Wesley have gloried in the 
freedom of the atmosphere which has constituted their reli- 
gious life. To be truly Methodistic the spirit of any gather- 

9 



FOREWORD 



ing must be truly catholic, and certainly that was the spirit 
of the gathering in Columbus. Interests solely and strictly 
denominational were in the background, and the great broad 
sweep of the gospel ideals gave a pure and wholesome atmos- 
phere to all the proceedings. The needs of humanity and 
of the Kingdom were uppermost. A bird's-eye view of these 
needs in our own commonwealth of Ohio and in the nation, 
and throughout the world came to us with the unfolding 
of the program in a fashion truly inspirational and master- 
ful. Every man upon the program came with a burning 
message begotten of the spirit of God as it had led him to 
a living consciousness of the great crying need of the cause 
for which he pleaded. It was a time when the Old Testa- 
ment function of prophecy had large inning, and as session 
after session passed, only to have the climax at the succeed- 
ing session, the feeling among the members of the convention 
was that the prayer of one in the olden time had been 
literally fulfilled, namely, "Would God all the Lord's people 
were prophets." 

No account of this Convention would be complete without 
emphasis upon the remarkable spirit of prevailing prayer 
which characterized it from beginning to end. A prayer 
circle consisting of several hundreds had been organized 
during the weeks of preparation for the gathering. At the 
first session on Wednesday afternoon, March 17, Dr. Mott 
dealt in characteristic fashion with the subject, "The Place 
of Prayer in Our Lives." During those great moments he 
sounded a fine keynote for all that was to follow. Every 
man of us heard the summons, "To your knees !" Following 
this address was a season of prayer. Men who know God 
voiced the yearning of the multitude for the consciousness 
of Divine enduement and the bending heavens came low. 
It was a return to the days of our fathers when the power 
of the Most High rested upon the assembly. The sense of 
the Divine Presence was awe-inspiring and wonderful. The 
feeling of all present was that we had been led into the very 

10 



FOREWORD 



presence of the eternal throne. It was a time when men 
caught a new Vision of God and the power of the Unseen. 
Veritably, it was a strong laying hold on God's willingness. 
This spirit of the consciousness of the Unseen pervaded 
every session and dominated those days of widening vision 
and deepening life. 

While the inspiration of the occasion was drawn from 
the unseen source of divine life, the Convention had 
its feet on the ground. It dealt with the practical needs 
of the Kingdom in the most definite, straightforward, and 
common-sense manner. The facts of the conditions of life 
in the State of Ohio were brought out relentlessly by the 
surveys as made from day to day. There were many facts 
that were not pleasing for us to hear, but there was but 
one thing to do and that was to face them fairly and 
squarely and courageously. It became clear that we have 
not gone on so far as many of us had supposed, that much 
remains to be done which most of us supposed had already 
been achieved. It brought us a new conception of the great- 
ness of our task, and laid us under new obligation to put 
into the solution of the task everything that we can give. 
The ideal of social service received new and tremendous 
emphasis. We asked ourselves frankly the question, "With 
such resources at our command, why do we not actually 
realize the kingdom of Heaven in the State of Ohio ?" Condi- 
tions obtaining both in city and country were set forth with 
perfect candor. A strong plea was made for purity in civic 
and political affairs, and a new impetus was given to the 
temperance reform in Ohio and in the nation. No member 
of the Convention who was present at the afternoon session 
on Friday will ever forget the inning which the temperance 
cause had at that time. Ohio Methodists are determined 
that the saloon shall be put out of business in the Buckeye 
State. The call has gone out for enlistment in the final 
campaign, and no set of men know this any better than those 
who represent the liquor interests. 

11 



FOREWORD 



No feature of the Convention was more striking and 
augurs larger things for practical results than the intense 
moral purpose of the men as evidenced by their attendance 
upon every service and their undivided attention to the 
matters in hand. One outside observer, writing in the 
hope that the results would be embodied in book form, says : 
"But the book can never tell the spirit of the meeting. Such 
order and quiet and harmony I have never seen in any public 
gathering." It was apparent from the beginning that the 
men had come there to serve the interests of the Kingdom, 
and that that purpose deepened in them with every advanc- 
ing session was apparent to everybody. This was one of 
the most striking features of the great gathering. What 
shall it mean for the kingdom of God in Ohio and in the 
country at large if that intense purpose shall be carried 
into every field represented by the ministers and laymen 
present? In no moment of the Convention was this intense 
moral purpose more manifest than in the closing moment 
when the challenge was thrown down to every man in the 
great body to accept an appointment as Jesus Christ's Man. 
When opportunity was given to respond, and almost before 
the last word was spoken, the vast assemblage stood upon 
its feet. It was a glorious answer to a high summons, 
and will never be forgotten by any man who witnessed it. 
What will it mean for every interest of the Kingdom, for 
a new and stronger emphasis upon the spiritual valuations, 
for a more efiScient social service, for an effective checking 
of the currents of evil which run through the life of the 
people, for the strengthening of the cause of all true and 
abiding reform, for the salvation of men, women, and little 
children, if God shall give grace to every man of us to be 
Jesus Christ's Man for all coming time and in every relation- 
ship of life? 

May the Great Head of the Church who witnessed our vow 
graciously enable each of us faithfully to perform the same. 

William F. Anderson. 

12 



The Challenge 



The religious pessimist is abroad in the land. He is ever 
with us, but he thinks circumstances now favor him, and he 
grows powerfully vocal. This terrible war, he says, is the 
end of the dreams of Christian pacificists and missionaries 
alike. Don't talk to him of social reconstruction, and of the 
Christianizing of all domestic life. Away with the pious 
fancies of a quickly coming day when the law of love shall 
be the rule of life and when true brotherhood will show itself 
in all our economic, social, and political life. 

Christ and His teachings of world peace and of a national 
and international as well as individual life regulated by His 
gospel — O, well, these are but pious maunderings and irides- 
cent dreams. The ethics of orthodox Christianity has failed, 
its dynamic is exhausted. The reign of strife and brute 
force is at hand. Put more blood and iron into your religion 
— and bow down before "the god of the things that are." 
And as for foreign missions, that program has entirely 
broken down. Success is impossible. So says the religious 
pessimist. 

The happy method of reply to all this more or less articu- 
late mood of pessimism has been to assemble a great body 
of the men of the Church, and to bring to them several of 
the leaders of the religious movements of our day, and to 
say to these: "Tell us squarely, honestly, without disguise 
or subtraction, the whole truth of matters as you see and 
know them. What is really happening in the world of the 
Spirit at home and abroad ? How goes the real battle 

So we came together where mighty men spoke and strong 
men laid bare their very souls and told us of the terrible 
day, and how God was using its terribleness to reach deeper 

13 



THE CHALLENGE 



down into the hearts of men. Pitilessly they told us of our 
failure, our weakness, our cowardice. Gloriously they told 
us of the measure of faith and faithfulness that is ours, and 
called us to move into the deeper depths of God and the 
more heroic service of men. Inspiringly they recounted suc- 
cesses at home and abroad. 

A score of them brought to us the challenge of this awful 
day with its unprecedented opportunities, and pointed us 
to our resources in God and called us to fellowship with 
Christ in the rescue and uplift of a great, pitiable, needy 
world. 

Eead this book and find in it this stirring challenge of 
the day, and how to meet it ; and then let us bend ourselves 
to lead the way in devotion and prayer and effort, to the 
full working out of a world's redemption from the injustice 
and sin and sorrow that lie so heavy upon it. Christ calls. 

"The Son of God goes forth to war. 
Who follows in His train?" 

W. F. Oldham. 



14 



PART I 
THE CHALLENGE 



draper 

Dr. Washington Gladden 

LoRD^ teach us to pray. Show us what are our 
deepest needs. Put into our minds the thoughts that 
shall make the meaning of Thy kingdom clear. Put 
into our hearts the desires that shall lay hold upon the 
things which Thou hast prepared for us. All things 
are ready in Thy hands for us, Thy children, and the 
hands — the bleeding hands of Him who gave His life 
for us — are extended with these gifts in them. We 
shall have them, we shall receive them, if we only know 
how to ask for them. 

We pray Thy blessing upon this company of Thy 
representatives. We thank Thee for this great Church, 
for the work it has done. We thank Thee for the bonds 
that bind these men together in fellowship. We thank 
Thee for the strength of this Church in this country, 
and now we beseech Thee to give to all these men the 
vision of the Kingdom, that they may see it and lay 
hold upon it. Thou hast said that except a man be 
born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. We 
pray that we may all be touched with the assurance 
and the presence of Thy Spirit, so that we shall see 
the kingdom of God, love it above all things, and seek 
it first. 

We pray that Thou wouldst help us to understand 
the meaning of the gospel of Christ. May the heart 
of it take possession of our hearts. Amen. 



The Present World Situation 

John K. Mott 

The forces of pure Christianity as they face the non- 
Christian nations and peoples are confronting an unpre- 
cedented world situation. Certainly it is unprecedented in 
opportunity. In this respect there has been nothing like it 
in the annals of the Christian faith. There have been times 
when in a few countries the doors to the friendly and con- 
structive mission of Christianity were as wide open as they 
are to-day ; but there never was a time when simultaneously 
in so many sections of the world the opportunities for the 
extension of the Christian religion were so numerous and 
so extensive as at the present time. This is true in the Far 
East and the Near East, in Southern Asia, in the Pacific 
Island world, in nearly all parts of Africa and of Latin 
America. Moreover, so far as one can forecast the future, 
there is not likely to come a time when the opportunities 
will be greater than those with which the Christian Church 
must deal to-day. Where, after China, is there another 
nation of four hundred millions of people to turn from an 
ancient past and to swing out into the full stream of modern 
Christian civilization? Where, after India, is there another 
vast empire to be swept by the spirit of unrest and to be 
made peculiarly accessible to the reconstructive processes 
of Christianity? Where, after Africa, is there another 
continent for which Mohammedanism and Christianity can 
contend ? Where, after Turkey and the Nile Valley, is there 
another keystone to the vast arch of the Mohammedan 
world, with seams of weakness which make possible the 
disrupting of the whole structure? 

What lends added significance to the present situation is 

17 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



the fact that this unparalleled enlargement of opportunity 
comes at a time when the Christian Church is called upon 
to deal with some of the most difficult problems with which 
it has ever had to grapple on the home field. This is true 
of North America, of Western and Northern Europe, of 
Australasia and South Africa. Why is it that at the very 
time the Christian forces have more to do than ever at the 
home base, they are also confronted with an immeasurably 
greater opportunity abroad than that which has faced any 
preceding generation ? May it not be because God sees that 
there are now on the earth those with whom He can trust 
a situation literally world-wide in its sweep? With His 
all-seeing eye does He not pierce beneath the surface and 
recognize latent in the Christians of our day capacities for 
vision, for adventure, for heroism, for statesmanship and 
for vicariousness which, if exercised and accompanied by 
His own superhuman forces, make possible the meeting of 
this absolutely new world situation? 

We are living at the most dangerous time in the history 
of the world. This is due to the shrinkage of the world 
caused by the greatly improved means of communication. 
In many ways the whole world now is smaller than that 
part of the United States east of the Mississippi River was 
a generation ago. It is, indeed, one great community. 
The mingling of peoples, the clash of civilizations, and the 
processes which characterize this scientific age have led 
to marked relaxing and weakening of the restraints of the 
social customs as well as the ethical and religious systems 
of non-Christian peoples. 

What will afford a helpful environment and ensure right 
feelings and relationships between nations and races? The 
only program which can meet all the alarming facts of the 
situation is the world-wide spread of Christianity in its 
purest form. In other words, this is not a matter of external 
arrangements. The disposition of men must be changed. 
Their motive life must be influenced. The springs of con- 

18 



THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



duct must be touched. Right ideals must be implanted. A 
new spirit must be imparted. All this is only tantamount 
to saying that the influence of the life and spirit as well 
as the principles of Jesus Christ, the source of superhuman 
life and energy, must be brought to bear on all men indi- 
vidually and point all their relationships. 

From the point of view of the Christian Church, the 
present moment is incomparably the most critical and 
urgent it has ever known. This is true because so many 
nations just now in a plastic condition are soon to become 
set unchangeably. Shall Christian or unchristian influences 
determine their character and destiny? The answer to this 
question cannot be deferred. To delay by even a half decade 
facing the situation and acting upon it comprehensively 
would be the most serious mistake which Christian leaders 
in this generation could make. 

The present is a time when rising tides of nationalism 
and racial patriotism are surging on every hand. Wherever 
the world traveler may have gone in recent years he has 
become very conscious of the thrill of a new life. He has 
found nations being reborn ; he has observed peoples coming 
into their own. This growing spirit of nationality and racial 
patriotism can no more be resisted than can the tides of the 
sea. If Christians show themselves sympathetic with all 
commendable national and racial aspirations of non-Chris- 
tian countries, the progress of Christianity throughout the 
world will be greatly facilitated; if they do not, the mission 
of the Christian religion will be indefinitely retarded. 

The startlingly rapid spread of the corrupt influences in 
our so-called Western civilization among non-Christian 
peoples constitutes another reason for prompt and urgent 
action on the part of the Christian Church. The cheek of the 
visitor from a Christian land blushes with shame as he sees 
in the port cities of Asia, Africa, and Latin America the 
alarming prevalence of evils which have spread from his 
native land. Some of these evils are eating like gangrene 

19 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



into the less highly organized races of mankind. Christian- 
ity has a double responsibility. It must counteract these 
baneful influences wherever they have extended and it must 
preempt those regions of the world where these evils have not 
yet reached. Nothing but the power of the living Christ can 
arrest and turn back these tides of death. 

On the other hand, the cancerous growths of the non-Chris- 
tian civilizations are eating with great directness and deadli- 
ness toward the very vitals of Christendom. We cannot 
trifle with cancers nor can we safely ignore them. Now that 
the world has found itself in its unity as one body ( and this 
is the first half generation in which this could be said), it 
can no longer be a matter of indifference to one part of the 
world-body what happens in any other part. If there be a 
plague spot in China or Turkey or Africa, sooner or later it 
must affect America, England, and Germany. It would seem 
that even though a man were not a Christian he would 
believe in foreign missions, that is, in the spread of the 
knowledge and live-giving power of the Christian religion, 
solely on grounds of patriotism. In these days it is difficult 
to understand the patriotism of the citizen who does not 
regard with responsive sympathy every wise effort to release 
throughout the earth the spirit and motives of Christianity. 

There is another dangerous process which greatly accen- 
tuates the urgency of the present situation — the process of 
syncretism. This would seek to combine certain truths of 
the Christian religion with certain good ideas of non-Chris- 
tian systems of religion or ethics, but would leave out the 
superhuman aspects of Christianity. This is tantamount to 
leaving out Christianity itself. More difficult to counteract 
and overcome than the non-Christian religions themselves 
are the dangers growing out of eclecticism. Its confusing, 
unsettling, and paralyzing influence is felt not only in the 
East but also in the West, and can be met only by bringing 
to bear a larger number of the strongest and best-equipped 
minds of our generation. 

20 



THE PRESENT WOKLD SITUATION 



The ijresent situation is immeasurably more urgent than 
that of other days because of the recent unparalleled tri- 
umphs of Christianity. It is a remarkable fact that the 
most extensive victories of Christian missions have been 
those of the recent past. Not even in the early days of Chris- 
tianity were such striking results achieved as have accom- 
panied the efforts of Christian missions in Asia and Africa 
during the last decade. These victories have been achieved 
not only in the more favored parts of the world where the 
forces and influences of the Christian religion are most con- 
centrated, but on some of the most difficult battlefields of the 
Church. Unquestionably it is a time of rising spiritual tide. 
It is always wise to take advantage of a rising tide. More 
can be accomplished in a short time under such circum- 
stances than in long, weary, discouraging periods of effort 
while the tide is falling. God seems to have done a hun- 
dred years' work within the last five years. The Christians 
of the West must quicken their pace. The discerning traveler 
returning from journeys in the Eastern world to-day must 
be constrained to confess solicitude, not lest the peoples of 
the East fail to receive Christ, but lest the Christians of the 
West lose Christ as a result of not passing on the knowl- 
edge of Him. The Christians now living in Western lands 
should have a realizing sense that this present, unparalleled 
world-situation affords not only the greatest opportunity 
the Church has ever known, but also, so far as they are con- 
cerned, their best and their only opportunity. 

There are many and multiplying evidences that the peoples 
of non-Christian lands are peculiarly accessible and respon- 
sive to the message and the messengers of vital Christianity. 
Facts could be massed showing how true this is with refer- 
ence to the masses in nearly all parts of Asia and Africa, not 
to mention other sections of the non-Christian world. Pos- 
sibly even more significant, however, are the facts indicating 
the attitude of the educated classes toward Christ and His 
claims. For the present, therefore, I confine myself to relat- 

21 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



ing certain experiences and recording impressions in connec- 
tion with my recent journeys in the Near East and the Far 
East. In order to make more clear the marked change which 
has taken place, I shall follow the plan of contrasting these 
late experiences and observations with those related to my 
visits to the same lands half a generation ago. The expe- 
rience and testimony of countless other travelers, as well 
as of workers residing in the different fields, would tend to 
enforce greatly the conviction that at the present time there 
exists throughout the non-Christian world an unexampled 
desire to know the truth of Christ and readiness to respond 
to the Christian appeal. 

On my first visit to Russia, about fifteen years ago, it was 
impossible to gain access to the educated classes of that 
great empire. At that time had I been found in a street car 
with five Russian students, all of us would have been subject 
to arrest. The meetings were necessarily held in secret, 
between midnight and four o'clock in the morning. During 
that visit, I delivered only one public address, and that in 
the British-American Chapel in Saint Petersburg (now 
Petrograd). I was warned that even there spies would be 
present, and it caused me not a little perplexity to choose 
a subject on which I could safely speak. 

In striking contrast with this experience was that of my 
last visit to Russia, when I was given the largest freedom to 
conduct public evangelistic campaigns among the students 
and other educated classes in some of the principal cities. 
It was necessary to secure the largest halls in these centers 
to hold the multitudes of students. All the meetings, as 
was customary, were open to both men and women students, 
for in that land the students of both sexes insist on having 
everything in common. The women were present even at 
meetings where purity and sex questions were discussed, 
maintaining, to use the expression of one of their number, 
"We have been going to the bad together; why should we 
not learn to climb the heights together?" Admission to the 

22 



THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



meetings was by ticket, and a charge was made in order 
that the students might accumulate a fund with which to 
help fellow students who were in dire need. As a rule, these 
large halls and theaters were crowded. 

Never shall I forget those seas of Russian faces extending 
from the stage where I stood, back over the crowded area 
and to the uppermost gallery. Most of the faces bore the 
mark of tragedy, and the word "tragedy" is used advisedly, 
for that Russian student is an exception who does not know 
its meaning, either through his own personal experience or 
that of some member of his family. 

Nearly all the students of Russia are agnostics. Though 
they are without religion, they are, however, the most reli- 
gious students I have ever met, unless it be those of India. 
They have a thirst to find religious truth and to experience 
its power. In every city large numbers of them became 
sincere inquirers. Bands of investigators of Christ and His 
teachings were left in each center. In one university center, 
the evening before the day of my departure, I said to the 
audience, "All those present who would like to learn how to 
follow Christ as I have been setting Him forth, meet me in 
this hall at two o'clock to-morrow afternoon." A difficult 
hour had purposely been chosen in order that there might 
be a more searching test. To the amazement of all, literally 
hundreds came to this special meeting — a meeting of such 
intensity as characterizes gatherings where there are present 
only those who are in dead earnest to discover and follow 
the truth. 

In the autumn of 1895, at the time of my first visit to 
Turkey, I tried in vain to get access to the Mohammedan 
students in Constantinople. When we started to board our 
ship we heard the firing of rifles, as Armenians were being 
shot down in the streets. We were told on good authority 
that during the few days we were there hundreds of them 
had stones tied to their necks and were sunk in the Bos- 
porus, because they had had the courage to think aloud or to 

23 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



associate with others who thus publicly expressed their 
opinions. 

Three years ago I revisited Turkey. The contrast in the 
experiences of the two visits seems almost incredible. On 
this last visit I went to Constantinople to help organize, at 
the gateway of the political capital of the Mohammedan 
world, a conference of the World's Student Christian Fed- 
eration. Plans were explained frankly and fully to the gov- 
ernment authorities, and not the slightest obstacle was 
placed in the way. The Conference was attended by leaders 
of the Christian forces among students from twenty-five dif- 
ferent nations. Although the number of delegates was lim- 
ited to about two hundred, there were represented among 
them over fifty branches of Protestantism. 

This most representative conference of all branches of 
Christendom was permitted to carry forward its discussions 
in the most open manner. Its speakers and members did 
not apologize for their religion. They set forth construc- 
tively the meaning of Christianity and its world program. 
In addition to the regular conference sessions, there were 
held every night in the six largest halls obtainable in dif- 
ferent parts of Stamboul and Pera, meetings for the edu- 
cated and influential classes — in one hall in the Armenian 
language, in one in Turkish, in another in German, in two 
places in French, and in still another in English. The halls 
were thronged by Moslems and Jews, as well as by members 
of the eastern churches. 

It is true that in the more recent past a serious reaction 
has set in. Many facts of a discouraging nature might be 
given, but against the most unfavorable considerations and 
circumstances there should be set in contrast certain facts 
which did not exist at the time of my first visit nearly 
twenty years ago. 

On my first visit it proved to be impracticable to gain 
access to Mohammedan students in Cairo, the great educa- 
tional capital of the Moslem world. I had to confine my 

24 



THE PEESENT WORLD SITUATION 



efforts in Egypt to meetings with the Coptic and Protestant 
Christian students. Returning to that land three years ago, 
I raised the question whether I might not give lectures on 
the power and claims of Christ to the Moslems and other 
Egyptian students. Representatives of government, and 
even some of the missionaries, while admitting that such 
meetings might be held, advised against holding them on the 
ground that they might stir up the spirit of fanaticism. 
Some of the more sympathetic Christian leaders were amazed 
at the plan proposed, which was to secure for the meetings 
the Abbas Theater, the largest in Egypt. As a theatrical 
company had engaged the place for each night, it was neces- 
sary to hold our meetings at a very unfavorable hour in the 
afternoon following the university work of the day. Not- 
withstanding this fact, the large theater, which accommo- 
dates twenty-five hundred, was overcrowded every afternoon, 
and after the first day it became necessary to have the help 
of the police to control the crowds of students on the out- 
side who were striving to gain admittance. 

On the last afternoon, I put to them this invitation : 
^'Those of you who would like to believe in the deity of Jesus 
Christ, if you could do so with intellectual honesty, meet me 
as soon as possible at the hall of the American Mission." 
Hastening through the crowded Cairo streets to the ap- 
pointed place, I found, to my surprise, the hall filled with 
students who had come in response to this invitation. 

My first visit to India lasted through the cold season of 
1895-96. Conferences and public meetings were held in all 
the university cities. These resulted in the formation of 
several Christian Associations. In connection with the evan- 
gelistic meetings only a few Hindu and Mohammedan stu- 
dents were led to become investigators of Christianity ; none 
of them, I think, confessed Christ during my visit, although 
it was a source of joy to learn that two or three subse- 
quently became Christians. Even these small beginnings in 
that most difficult student field of the world, the home of 

25 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



non-Christian religions, sent me on my way greatly encour- 
aged. 

On my return to India with Mr. Sherwood Eddy two years 
ago, I found a vastly enlarged opportunity. Again the tour 
embraced the five great university centers — Madras, Bom- 
bay, Lahore, Allahabad, and Calcutta. In every place the 
largest theater or hall we could obtain was filled to overflow- 
ing with students. Here were audiences of crowded ranks 
of Hindus, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Parsees, as well as 
agnostics and adherents of various eclectic systems. Little 
bands of Christians were scattered among them. Every 
meeting constituted a conflict so great that at its close we 
went away completely exhausted. In Madras one Sunday 
afternoon it seemed as if everything were going against us. 
Many were hissing at the mention of the name of Christ. 
Groups of students had stationed themselves in different 
parts of the room to create disturbance and thus break up 
the meeting. At a critical stage I noticed several men leave 
the meeting and feared that the break-up of the meeting 
was imminent. But in a few moments there came a hush 
upon the vast, tumultuous assembly, and, as Christ the 
living Lord was exalted in the closing appeal, one was dis- 
tinctly conscious that His Spirit was moving mightily upon 
the consciences and hearts of men. Some months later 
we learned the secret of the marked manifestation of super- 
human power. Those who had gone out of the meeting were 
some earnest Christian students who went behind the stage 
and fell upon their faces before God in fervent intercession. 
Then we understood that Christ had again stilled the 
tempest. 

At the close of our tour in India a conference of Christian 
students from seventy colleges of all i)arts of India and 
Ceylon was held at Serampore, the scene of William Carey's 
remarkable labors. One evening at dusk Bishop Azariah, 
who, on the preceding Sunday in Saint Paul's Cathedral, 
Calcutta, had been consecrated as the first Indian bishop, 

26 



THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



baptized two Indian students who had become inquirers in 
our meetings in Calcutta. This took place in the Hooghly 
River at the very spot where a hundred years before, William 
Carey, after seven years of service, had baptized his first 
low-caste convert. It means far more for a few Hindus and 
Mohammedans in India to take such a step than it would 
for a thousand agnostics in the great universities of Amer- 
ica or Europe to make a public profession of faith in Christ. 

All over India to-day, not simply scores or hundreds but 
thousands of the educated classes are secret inquirers. They 
have been intellectually convinced and their hearts have been 
deeply moved, as a result of the faithful and self-denying 
work of the missionaries. What is needed is the additional 
impulse which will come when the Church of the West 
recovers and utilizes the gift of intercession. 

Buddhism in its purest and most aggressive form is found 
in Burma and Ceylon. It means much, therefore, that both 
in Rangoon and in Colombo, the principal student centers 
of these two fascinating countries, the largest halls were 
required to hold the Buddhist students who came together to 
listen to addresses setting forth the unique sufficiency of 
Christ to meet the deepest needs of men and nations. In 
these places, as in the Indian cities, hundreds were led to 
form the purpose to study Christ and to obey His truth. 

When I first visited Japan in 1896-97, I met with a good 
reception and helped to plant the Christian Student Move- 
ment both in government and in missionary colleges. Dur- 
ing a period of three months filled with meetings, some two 
hundred Japanese students were led to become inquirers. 
Similar encouragement attended a second visit nearly five 
years later. My third visit was made in connection with the 
Conference of the World's Student Christian Federation in 
1907. At that time international deputations of Christian 
leaders preached the gospel to the educated classes in virtu- 
ally every student conjmunity of the empire, and large num- 
bers were led to become Christian disciples. Many won- 

27 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



dered whether there would ever recur such an opportunity ; 
but last year the doors were found to be even wider open 
than ever. Wherever I went the halls and churches were over- 
crow^ded with eager listeners, and seldom was a meeting held 
in which less than a hundred and fifty students decided to 
become inquirers. A larger proportion of those present at 
the different meetings became inquirers than in similar 
meetings held among the educated classes in any other 
land. 

When I first visited China, in the year 1896, I became 
deeply interested in the problem of reaching the literati, the 
ancient and influential scholar class from whose ranks 
for two thousand years had come the leaders of the nation. 
When the question was raised as to whether I might not 
gain access to the literati, missionaries told me that we 
would never live to see the day when they would be access- 
ible to Christian effort. In reporting on the student field of 
China at that time, therefore, I characterized the Chinese 
literati as the Gibraltar of the student w^orld, by which was 
meant an impregnable position. Five years later, on revisit- 
ing the country, a long day was spent with the presidents of 
seventeen missionary colleges discussing the problem of 
reaching the literati. At last we came to the reluctant con- 
clusion that all that could be done would be to cultivate here 
and there personal relations with these scholars in their 
homes, and also once a year to stand at the gates where the 
scholars stream out at the end of their examinations and 
hand to them Christian literature. As for assembling the 
literati and thus having opportunity to influence them col- 
lectively, or to draw them into any organization, that was 
deemed to be quite hopeless. 

Again, five years later, as I traveled over the Chinese 
empire, I found that the walls of Jericho had begun to 
crumble. In some places I could look through, and here and 
there I could reach through and clasp hands with those 
splendid representatives of educated China, both the ancient 

28 



THE PRESENT WORLD SITUATION 



and the modern literati. In exceptional cases it was possible 
to bring them together in meetings where I could appeal to 
them on behalf of Christ. In contrast with all this, even 
these promising beginnings, stand tlie almost unbelievable 
incidents connected with the visit made last year. 

When I reached Hongkong a deputation from Canton met 
me and stated that they had hired the largest theater in 
the country, a building holding thirty-five hundred people, 
for the student mass meetings to be held in that gateway city 
of South China. When I asked them why they had not 
arranged to begin the work in a smaller hall they challenged 
me to wait and see. On going to the appointed place before 
the advertised hour for the opening meeting, the streets 
adjoining the theater were found thronged with students, 
and we were told that every place in the theater was 
taken. On the platform were seated some fifty leading 
Chinese ofiicials of the province, most of whom had studied 
in Japan or America. They had come to show in the most 
conspicuous way their sympathy with the purpose of the 
meetings. One night the chair was taken by the Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court, another night by the Premier, 
and the next night by the Commissioner of Education. Each 
evening I gave two or three extended addresses, the meet- 
ings lasting three hours and a half. Over seven hundred stu- 
dents and teachers became inquirers, one fourth of whom 
have been baptized and have been received into the churches 
— a larger proportion than usually take this step in connec- 
tion with similar efforts in universities of the West. 

At each meeting the inquirers signed cards making the 
three following promises : 

1. I will make a conscientious study of the four Gospels; and, 
that I may do this to the best advantage, I will meet for one hour 
each week with others who are making the same investigation. 

2. I will pray daily to the holy God for wisdom to find the truth, 
and for courage to follow it after I have discovered it. 

3. When my reason and conscience permit me to do so, I will take 
Christ as my Saviour and Lord. 

29 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



They were not given opportunity to sign the cards until 
after I had spent over half an hour in explaining several 
times the meaning of these three promises. 

Facts such as those here set forth could be greatly multi- 
plied not only with reference to the countries touched in 
this review and contrast, but also regarding many other 
parts of the wide world-field. They demonstrate that the 
cause of the Christian religion is entering upon a new age. 
Old things are passing away ; all things are becoming new. 
The non-Christian nations are indeed wide open. They are 
more accessible than ever. Their fields are dead ripe. They 
are ready for the sickle. The time has come to reap on a 
scale which transcends anything hitherto attempted. The 
plans of the Kingdom must be greatly widened. The leaders 
of the aggressive forces of the Christian religion must 
grapple with the present marvelous world situation in a 
truly statesmanlike way, and in complete reliance on their 
superhuman resources. 



The Uplift of a Race 

Eev. p. J. Maveety^ Corresponding Secretary of the 
Freedmen^s Aid Society 

A PART of the great home missionary problem, and quite 
intimately related to the salvation of Africa, is the uplift 
and moral and spiritual development of the ten millions of 
black people in the United States of America. Over three 
hundred years ago this man was caught in the wilds of 
Africa, and against his will was forcibly transported to 
America, and for two hundred and fifty years he helped in 
slavery for the development of the material resources of 
these United States. His services and sacrifices were no 
inconsiderable part of the price paid for the material ad- 
vancement of our Southern States. Without him that sec- 

30 



THE UPLIFT OF A RACE 



tion of the country' could not have been brought to the high 
degree of agricultural productiveness to which it has 
attained. It could not very well get along without him to- 
day. The ten millions of black people in the South are a 
necessary and essential factor in its material prosperity. At 
the close of the war four millions of these human beings were 
freed from slavery. They were without education, without 
property, and, worse than all, without experience in taking 
care of themselves. The South, prostrated by the awful 
carnage and destruction of war, was not in a position to 
furnish them with educational and material opportunities. 
The people of that section had all they could do to rebuild 
their own broken fortunes, and reconstruct the material 
machinery of the South. How to accomplish his uplift and 
provide adequately for his future as an integral part of the 
population and resources of the nation was, at that time, and 
has been since then, our most difficult problem. We have 
been calling it the race problem, forgetting that any race 
under similar circumstances would have produced a prob- 
lem ; for everywhere ignorance and poverty, when congested 
and in immense masses, constitutes the most serious prob- 
lem of human uplift. 

The churches of the North, interested in the moral and 
Christian development of all races of mankind, felt a call to 
this most serious and needy home missionary field, and soon 
after the war representatives of the Methodists, Presbyte- 
rians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Roman 
Catholics, and others went into the Southland and estab- 
lished churches and schools among the recently emancipated 
Negro people; and from that time until this they have con- 
tinued this service. Conditions have so developed that the 
Negro people are put by themselves in their schools, in their 
churches, and in their social relations. Under such circum- 
stances the greatest need is a right leadership from among 
the people themselves, and this the schools and churches are 
rapidly producing. 

31 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



The greatest present need of the black man in the South 
is Christian leadership in the pulpit, in the schoolroom, on 
the farm, and in that divine art of human healing practiced 
by the physician. The Freedmen's Aid Society of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, with its twenty-two schools, three 
hundred and seventy-two teachers, and six thousand nine 
hundred and sixty-one students, is the contribution of our 
Church toward the training of ministers, physicians, school- 
teachers, and industrial leaders for the three hundred and 
twenty-five thousand colored membership in our Church, and 
through them for the ten millions of the African race in the 
United States. At Atlanta, Gammon Theological Seminary 
has one hundred boys in preparation for the Christian min- 
istry, and it has already contributed fifteen hundred to the 
work of the ministry in all the colored denominations of the 
South. These men occupy the places of responsibility and 
powerj and mold the moral and spiritual characters of mil- 
lions of their race. 

Meharry Medical College, at Nashville, has over five hun- 
dred boys and some girls in training to be physicians, den- 
tists, pharmacists, and trained nurses. Of the three thou- 
sand five hundred Negro physicians in the United States 
one half of them are graduates of this institution. Its work 
commends itself to philanthropists of all races, so that Jew 
and Gentile, Christian and non-Christian, heartily unite in 
its support. 

Flint Medical College, at New Orleans, has had its medical 
work temporarily transferred to Meharry, for lack of en- 
dowment and equipment, but is carrying on its hospital 
and nurse-training departments, with the prospect that 
when its hospital building shall be enlarged it will continue 
a center of spiritual and physical healing to nearly a million 
of colored people in New Orleans and vicinity. 

The other nineteen schools, located at strategic positions 
in the South, are mainly engaged in furnishing school- 
teachers, plain village, country school-teachers, trained 

32 



THE UPLIFT OF A EACE 



under Christian influences, to go out into the needy dis- 
tricts of the South, to teach in the day schools, and be an 
inspiration and a help to the pastors as Sunday school work- 
ers. Dr. James H. Dillard, Director of the Slater and 
Jeanes Funds, himself a Southern educator of large expe- 
rience, expresses what is the conviction of the United States 
Commissioner of Education and all other educational lead- 
ers in the South, that the greatest single need of the colored 
people in the South to-day is competent and well-trained 
school-teachers. These young people constitute, with the 
ministers and the physicians, the inspirational leaders and 
examples of all that is best and highest in our civilization 
for the colored people of the South. 

In addition to the production of school-teachers, our insti- 
tutions are doing more or less of industrial training. Claflin 
University, at Orangeburg, South Carolina, and Morristown 
Normal and Industrial College, at Morristown, Tennessee, 
are centers where carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, 
tailors, and other industrial leaders are trained and sent out 
to direct and guide the material development of the black 
people. In all of the schools the domestic arts and sciences 
are given a large place. In connection with the Model 
Homes of the Woman's Home Missionary Society, where 
these exist, young girls are taught cooking and sewing, and 
trained in practical home-making, so necessary to this new 
and humble race. Wherever possible model gardens and 
farms are operated for profit and instruction. 

What has been the black man's response to fifty years of 
schooling? Here is a census of a half-century of freedom 
in material gains: 



33 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Conditions of the Colored People 



1863 



1913 



Total Negro population 4,441,730 

Homes owned by Negroes 0 

Churches owned by Negroes 400 

Church membership 40,000 

Sunday schools 0 

Sunday school scholars 0 

imteracy 90% 

Value of property, estimated at $1,200,000 

Number of farms owned 0 

Value of church property $500,000 

Nimiber of college and university grad- 
uates 30 

Professional men 0 

Number of practicing physicians, esti- 
mated at 0 

Number of practicing lawyers 0 

Number of business men, estimated at . 0 

Number of children in schools 25,000 

Nimiber of Negro towns 0 

Number of Negro teachers 0 

Land owned by Negroes 0 

acres, or 31,000 square rnili 

Drug stores 0 

General stores and other industrial en- 
terprises 0 

Newspapers and periodicals 1 

Hospital and nurse-training schools .... 0 

Banks owned by Negroes 0 

Insurance companies 0 

66.2 per cent of all Negroes ten years of 
age and over are engaged in gainful 
occupations. 

Property owned by Negro secret soci- 

ties 0 

Capital stock Negro banks 0 

Annual business done by Negro banks. . 0 



9,828,294 
500,000 
31,393 
3,207,305 
24,380 
1,448,570 
30.5% 
$1,000,000,000 
250,000 
$65,000,000 

8,000 
75,000 

3,500 
1,500 
50,000 
2,000,000 
50 
30,000 
20,000,000 



300 

20,000 
398 
61 
72 
100 



$8,000,000 
2,000,000 
20,000,000 



With such a record as this shall we discontinue or relax 
our efforts? By no means. With patience and sympathy, 
and with confidence in the power of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ to save all the races, we shall not turn back until the 
descendants of the emancipated people shall enjoy that 
larger, fuller, higher emancipation of the mind and heart, 
which comes only through a full acceptance of the principles 
and teachings of our Lord Christ. 



34 



WINNING AMERICA 



Winning America 

Freeman D. Bovard^ Corresponding Secretary^ the Board 
OF Home Missions and Church Extension 

I 

For the better understanding of the Missionary agency 
of the church the Board of Home Missions and Church 
Extension may be described as a device by which the whole 
church may assist the individual local church and by which 
the individual local church may effectually promote and 
sustain the broad plans of the whole church. Mr. Kipling, 
in one of his jungle rhymes, says, 

"The strength of the pack is the wolf. 
And the strength of the wolf is the pack." 

The principle is a simple one but a fundamental one. The 
individual church cannot realize its full strength without the 
impact of the whole church. The primary reason for organ- 
izing Boards of Home and Foreign Missions is to conserve, 
unite, promote, and direct the benevolent gifts of the local 
or individual church. The local church in order to cooper- 
ate in these large nation-wide, world-wide plans of the king- 
dom of God must apparently sacrifice something of its indi- 
vidual rights. All great cooperative movements of society 
imply the surrender of individual rights. 

The Board of Home Missions and Church Extension 
is the local churches, the Annual Conferences, acting in 
their collective capacity, applying their benevolent collec- 
tions to the maintenance of the ministry and to the building 
of Churches. Ohio is greater as a part of the federal govern- 
ment than Ohio could be as a separate State. Ohio Method- 
ism is greater as a part of federal Methodism than it could 
be as an Ohio Methodism alone. If the local church would 
count for its highest and best, would register in the most 
efficient outcome, it must be loyal to the great unified plans 
of the church. 

35 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



II 

Methodism, acting in its collective capacity as a Board 
of Home Missions and Church Extension, undertakes 
to aid and increase the efficiency of the living, aggressive 
ministry. By a direct donation last year of |684,535 it was 
able to hold to the front, in the country, in the city, and 
among foreign-speaking people about four thousand Home 
Missionary ministers. That amount is an average of 
|150 each. By giving this |150, holding the missionary 
minister in his place until he is able to get a hold upon the 
community, the community responds annually with about 
|450 additional. By this cooperative method the amount 
raised for ministerial support is actually increased over 
11,800,000. We must see this problem in the aggregate in 
order to be just in the conception of the Church acting in 
its collective capacity. Since 1864, when the Church Exten- 
sion was first effected, Methodism has aided by donation and 
loan more than sixteen thousand churches. The Donation 
Fund authorized this year |164,925. The General Com- 
mittee, not the Board, sets apart this amount to the various 
Conferences according to their several needs. The Loan 
Fund is to be understood as being entirely different from 
the Donation Fund. The Loan Fund is derived from money 
placed by individuals in the hands of the Board to be loaned 
to the churches. No part of it comes from the churches. 
This fund has grown from |1,325 in 1868, to |1,748,350 in 
1914. Of this amount |1,254,561 has come by way of 
annuities, and |493,788 has come to the Board by gifts 
from individuals. The Board has loaned to the churches 
since 1868 a total of |3,432,560. Of this amount |2,627,698 
has been returned. There is now loaned to the churches, 
properly secured by bond and mortgage, |991,540. 

Ill 

Thus far one might suppose that the Board of Home 
Missions and Church Extension is a sort of banking estab- 

36 



WINNING AMERICA 



lishment — a financial clearing house — and so it is; and 
as such it collected and disbursed $1,060,000, for the most 
part in pennies and dimes from its wide constituency, and 
administered nearly another million of loans. It has made 
the gifts of the people do the work for which the gifts were 
made. There are few banking establishments in the country 
that have handled more money, and yet that is only one part 
of the work done by Methodism acting through the Board of 
Home Missions and Church Extension. It is not the most 
important part. 

The highest results are not registered in terms of finance. 
There are ten downtown churches in a single city whose 
doors would have been closed long since but for the aid given 
by this Board. It is safe to say that during the past year 
in our great cities, more than one hundred downtown 
churches have been able by the aid of the Board of Home 
Missions to keep open their doors. In the particular city 
and in those ten downtown churches has been gathered a 
Sunday school membership of over five thousand two hun- 
dred and a church membership of two thousand seven hun- 
dred. The indirect missionary influence of these downtown 
churches is proportionately large. Through these home mis- 
sionary agencies the message of the Kingdom reaches not 
less than one hundred thousand of the poorest of the poor in 
these great cities. To this must be added the enormous 
work that is being done among the foreign-speaking peoples 
in our cities. Through this Board evangelistic work is be- 
ing carried on among twenty-five different foreign-speaking 
peoples. The results cannot be estimated in terms of arith- 
metic. Through the aid of this Board nearly one hundred 
thousand foreigners in the great cities have the gospel of the 
Kingdom in some vital form preached to them. To this must 
be added the social service being rendered by our city mis- 
sionaries. Boston, Brooklyn, New York, Philadelphia, Cleve- 
land, Denver, and scores of other cities have a great and 
triumphant story to tell. Methodism in the capacity of its 

37 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Board of Home Missions and Church Extension is spending 
about 1150,000 in one hundred cities. 

IV 

Forty years ago a great population was rolling into 
Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. These States are 
no longer frontier States in the same sense they were at 
that time. Still they are full of frontier problems. Every 
State, without a single exception, west of the Mississippi has 
doubled the price of its entire farming area since 1900. The 
population in Iowa and the Middle- Western States has 
gained in ten years from three to seven per cent only. More 
than three million of the Middle- Western and Eastern popu- 
lation have gone over the Kocky mountains since 1900. There 
are hundreds of Protestant churches practically deserted in 
the Middle West. At a Methodist rally in Long Beach, 
Southern California, some months ago, to which only Meth- 
odists from the State of Iowa were invited, more than 
eighteen thousand were present. If a similar invitation had 
been extended to Ohio, the response would have been equally 
surprising. 

The Southern California Conference was organized in 1875 
with about a dozen itinerants and less than two thousand 
church members. In one short generation it has grown to 
nearly two hundred and seventy-five itinerants and a mem- 
bership of nearly fifty thousand and a university with more 
than two thousand five hundred students enrolled. It is 
already one of Methodism's great benevolent Conferences. 
What is true in southern California is relatively true in the 
great Northwest. A great population is pouring into the 
States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. More 
than one hundred thousand people — homesteaders — have 
come into Montana during the last year. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of acres of land held in reservation by the government 
have been released and great colonies of homesteaders are 
rushing in to occupy these lands. The government is add- 

38 



WINNING AMERICA 



ing to the value of this vast Northwest by new irrigation 
projects. In eastern Oregon there is a settlement of nearly 
forty thousand people in a district of forty thousand square 
miles, and until recently neither a Protestant church nor a 
Protestant preacher was to be found in that area. There is 
a vital sense in which the problem of ^'Winning of the West" 
is at the door of the Protestant churches. There is not a 
State west of the Mississippi River in which any one of the 
Protestant denominations predominates. There is a vast 
Roman Catholic movement to the West. The public schools 
are rapidly falling under the control of that ecclesiasticism. 

The movement to the West is by no mean the only great 
movement of the United States population. If we are to 
depend on statistics, more than three million six hundred 
thousand people have moved into the sixteen Southern 
States. Here land is cheap, here Protestantism dominates, 
here the tide of foreign immigration has not been appreciably 
felt. The whole South is being reorganized. This applies 
to the country socially, educationally, industrially, and 
economically. The public school system is literally booming. 
The population of Texas has increased over one million dur- 
ing the last decade; the Church in its large and collective 
capacity must take notice of these vast movements of the 
population. Help must be extended to the churches stranded 
by the departing population, and especially is the Church 
bound to send pastors to the West and to the South, where 
this vast population is making new homes and a new civil- 
ization. 

V 

The movement toward the country is measurably in a 
psychological state. A strenuous effort is being made 
by most of the denominations to increase the efficiency of 
the rural church. Methodism has always been strong in the 
country. The itinerancy is adapted to the country. Whether 
any considerable number of the urban population will move 
to the country permanently will depend primarily on eco- 

39 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



nomic conditions. If the country overproduces, and the 
markets break down, the people will not be able to remain in 
the country. Tens of thousands of sacks of potatoes per- 
ished in the fields of California because the Boards of Trade 
refused to flood the market. It is too soon to say what this 
vast agricultural movement means. Thirty-one State Legis- 
latures passed laws in its favor in 1913. The high schools 
and State universities are in many States adding agriculture 
to their courses of study. Agricultural conventions, confer- 
ences, congresses, assemblies, and institutes in all parts of 
the country are the order of the day. 

Methodism cannot neglect this great agitation. Young 
college men are coming to the front in Ohio, in Indiana, and 
far out on the Western frontier, and in a spirit of heroism 
and great self-sacrifice are revitalizing the circuit system. 
The result may be easily predicted. The whole circuit system 
will be made modern and efficient. The city and the country 
are alike calling for Methodism's methods and Methodism's 
spirit. 

VI 

Until arrested by the European war, an enormous tide 
of immigration — nearly a million a year — was pouring 
into this country. Something like three hundred thou- 
sand of that number returned every year to their European 
homes. This vast flux of immigrants gave America cause for 
serious concern, because these immigrants had to be trans- 
formed into American citizens and assimilated into this 
great free republic. Methodism as one of the great Protes- 
tant forces is responding to this call. Every country in 
Europe has felt the power of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

In 1886 a Japanese Mission was opened in San Francisco. 
Two thousand converts and a vast reenforcement to the mis- 
sionary forces in Japan were among the results. It is no 
exaggeration to say that the Japanese Mission in San Fran- 
cisco has done more to bring about a better understanding 

40 



A SALOOKLESS AMERICA 



between this country and Japan than all diplomatic agencies 
combined. The distinguished services of both the superin- 
tendents of the Japanese Mission in San Francisco have been 
recognized by the emperor of Japan, who conferred on each 
of them the decoration of a high order. Many of the re- 
forms have been introduced into Japan by Christian states- 
men brought to Christ in our San Francisco mission. 
The present ambassador to the United States is an alumnus 
of one of our western Christian colleges; and his first 
secretary, one of the ablest Japanese statesmen, is a convert 
of the San Francisco mission. The San Francisco Chinese 
mission has a similar record. 

There is proof positive and overwhelming that the Chinese 
missions in San Francisco, more than all other agencies com- 
bined, worked out the initial concept in Southern China 
of the Chinese republic. The Chinese missions in San Fran- 
cisco have set aflame all Southern China. Sun Yat Sen, the 
first president of the republic, was a convert of the Presby- 
terian Mission in Hawaii. The Chinese Christians in San 
Francisco give over |2,000 a year to support Christian 
work in Southern China. From San Francisco, Sacramento, 
Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle, Methodism is pouring 
streams of light into China, Japan, and Korea. This country 
through the Christian missions is vitally connected with all 
the great nations of the world. 

A Saloonless America 

Howard H. Russell^ of the Anti-Saloon League of 
America 

On the tenth day of December, 1913, I saw a throng of 
people at a great meeting at Washington raise up their right 
hands and declare, "With God's help we will see this thing 
through." What was it they purposed to see through ? The 
day before there had been introduced into the House and 
Senate of the United States, at the request of a committee 

41 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



of two thousand, a proposition to amend the Constitution of 
the United States for the permanent prohibition of the manu- 
facture, sale, importation, exportation, and transportation 
of intoxicating beverages through the length and breadth of 
the United States of America. 

How are we going to see this thing through? We are 
going to have Methodist cooperation, and that of the men of 
the other church bodies of the country, and the women also, 
coming, as they are now, rapidly into the power of citizen- 
ship. We are to see this through with the cooperation of 
such organizations as will be represented here by Wayne B. 
Wheeler, looking toward State prohibition. We are to have 
the cooperation of such organizations as the Church Tem- 
perance Society of the Methodist Church. 

I am representing the Anti-Saloon League of America. 
We have headquarters at Washington open during the ses- 
sions of Congress and the year around, where we are watch- 
ing with a corps of workers, and, whenever necessary, send- 
ing forth the call for cooperation in new measures introduced 
session by session into the Congress of the United States. 

My colleague is to-day in Honolulu. He is looking at first- 
hand at the crisis there. When he returns, our headquarters 
will be instructed to introduce a bill, which I dare predict 
will be passed, to give prohibition to the Hawaiian Islands. 

Senator Shepard introduced a bill to wipe out what was 
left of the saloons in the Capital City. It was not carried at 
that time, but in the next Congress the three hundred saloons 
now left of the twelve hundred with which we began business 
twenty years ago will be wiped out. 

We are moving now to get ready to win the last ten 
States. To help us it is necessary that we have twenty-five 
thousand people at the Convention of the Anti-Saloon League 
to be held next July in Atlantic City. 

Be there yourself and see that others are there to join the 
25,000 who will unite in pledging that "With God's help we 
will see this thing through." 

42 



A SALOONLESS OHIO IN 1915 



A Saloonless Ohio in 1915 

Wayne B. Wheeler_, Attorney for Anti-Saloon League 

OF Ohio 

Ohio is going dry. Our enemy in the beer barracks are 
disappointed and discouraged over their disastrous victory 
last fall. They expected to open more than fifteen hundred 
saloons by means of their so-called ^'Home Rule" amendment. 
Since the November election, sixty-two wet-and-dry elec- 
tions in villages, cities, and townships have been held. In 
fifty out of these sixty-two places the majority have voted 
against the return of the saloon. Other elections are 
scheduled, and we believe the results will be satisfactory. 
It appears now that the new saloons under the Home Rule 
amendment will be fewer than four hundred. Their 'Vic- 
tory" will be the scaffold on which the traffic will be executed 
at the next election. 

The first gun of the enemy's campaign was fired in last 
Sunday's papers in advertisements that cost the liquor in- 
terests thousands of dollars. It was a whine and a wail of 
woe — "Please do not sign the petition and bring on another 
election this fall." Why are they so afraid of another elec- 
tion this fall? If they were in a business which they could 
defend on its merits, they would not fear a test of public 
sentiment. They charge in their advertisements that the dry 
forces tried to destroy the initiative and referendum. This 
is about as near the truth as they usually come. 

We asked the Supreme Court after the election to order 
the election officers to recount the ballots in precincts where 
there was fraud and dishonesty. The courts said they had 
no authority to make such an order, as there was no specific 
law providing for it. Following this, we asked the court 
to set aside the election, as there was no specific election 
machinery providing for submitting the questions at the 
last election. If officials could not use implied power to 

43 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



have an honest count, they ought not to use implied power 
to hold the election. The election was upheld, however, on 
the theory that the constitutional provision relating to the 
initiative and referendum is self-executing and there was 
no necessity of specific authority for holding an election on 
questions submitted. We have fought the brewery interests 
consistently every inch of the way in the courts, in the 
Legislature, and at the polls, and this is why they are now 
asking for a cessation of hostilities. Their slogan in this 
campaign is printed on a button worn by the members of 
the Cincinnati delegation in the Legislature. It says, "Give 
us a rest." Our reply is, "No rest for wrongdoers." We 
will give them "a plenty" before the campaign is over. We 
are going to fight it out. General Grant style, if it takes all 
summer, or a dozen summers. 

There are many reasons for the faith that is in us that 
Ohio is going dry. In the first place, Ohio's beer barons 
cannot win the next election by deception, by corrupt use 
of money, or by stealing the votes as they did last time. 

The Home Kule slogan of the last campaign was deceptive. 
It is worn out. They cannot fool the people all the time. 
Under this same slogan and by the initiative and referendum, 
the liquor interests repealed county option in Oregon, but 
the people realized their mistake, and at the next election 
they adopted State prohibition, just as we will do in Ohio. 
History will repeat itself. 

Corrupt methods never win permanent victories. Our 
enemy, according to their filed reports, spent |600,000. This 
does not represent half of the money used. Much of it was 
spent in violation of law. We will have the machinery in 
working order at the next election to prevent such illegal 
expenditure of money ; and where it is attempted, those who 
try will suffer the penalties of the law. 

Honest Elections Law 
To help prevent the recurrence of such fraud and dis- 

U 



A SALOONLESS OHIO IN 1915 



honesty, an Honest Election Law has been passed. It pro- 
vides for a recount in case of a dishonest count and for a 
contest. It penalizes the judges and makes them forfeit 
their office when they violate the plain provisions of the law, 
as they did the last time in many precincts. Challengers 
are provided by the law and deputies are named by the 
contending committees to see that the law is enforced in 
each precinct. Whenever a "wet'' committee attempts to 
buy votes or intimidate voters, that precinct will not be 
counted. It removes the incentive for corruption. When 
we have an honest election in Ohio, with the influence of 
money removed from it, Ohio is going dry. 

Saloon Fight a State Issue 

The voters of Ohio now realize that the liquor question is 
a State issue. One large brewery-dominated city forced this 
iniquitous amendment on the rest of the State which other- 
wise had voted by majority of almost fifty thousand against 
Home Eule. A saloon-debauched citizenship, voting through 
corrupt methods practically as a unit, has served notice 
on Ohio that it will not allow the people of the different 
counties to have the kind of legislation they want. We must 
either accept the beer standards of our big cities, or take 
the logical alternative — vote the State dry. We accept the 
gauntlet thrown down by the enemy. Ohio will be dry. 

More Than a Wet-and-Dry Fight 

It is more than a wet-and-dry fight. If our saloon-con- 
trolled centers can dictate legislation relating to the moral 
welfare of the State, it will not stop with the saloon ques- 
tion. Most of the safeguards that protect the home and 
moral welfare of the State will also be attacked and 
destroyed. This is a fight for civilization itself. There is 
no middle ground. You will have to line up with the saloon 
and evil forces of the community, or with those who stand 

45 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



for the fundamental principles of government and civic 
righteousness. 

Lav7 Enforcement Problem Solved 

It has been hurled in our teeth for years that prohibition 
cannot be enforced. We now have our enemy cornered. 
Bead the statement recently made by the president of the 
Columbus Associated Breweries. Mr. Hoster stated that 
the reason why the twelve-million-dollar brewery corpora- 
tion went into the hands of a receiver was, "dry counties 
under county option and prohibition in West Virginia." 
Kead the statement of the liquor dealers from Cincinnati, 
following the decision which we secured in old Virginia 
enjoining express companies from shipping liquor into West 
Virginia in violation of law. They say that one decision 
will cost them a million dollars a year in Cincinnati alone. 
This decision was made possible under the Webb-Kenyon 
Interstate Liquor Shipment Law and the law-enforcement 
statutes of West Virginia. Every State now has the oppor- 
tunity to secure effective law-enforcement measures. Their 
fight from now on will be made on the basis, not that "prohi- 
bition doesn't prohibit," but that prohibition does prohibit. 
And in its wake you will find breweries, distilleries, and 
saloon buildings being converted into avenues for far greater 
employment of labor at a better wage and producing happi- 
ness rather than hell. 

Our Enemy^s Friends Are Deserting Them 

One by one the former champions of the liquor traffic are 
deserting them. They are doing it, not out of a spirit of 
revenge, but because they are convinced that the leaders 
of the liquor traffic are insincere in their claim for regTila- 
tion of saloons. Major Dan Morgan Smith, who has been 
their chief counsel for years, says that he was authorized 
by the liquor dealers of this country to promise regulation 
in order to defeat prohibition; that in every instance the 

46 



A SALOONLESS OHIO IN 1915 



liquor dealers failed to make good ; that there is not a model 
license law on the statute books of any State of the nation, 
and the liquor dealers will never voluntarily allow such 
a law to be placed on the statute books or enforced; that 
regulation that regulates will never be, and therefore every 
man who wants a solution of the saloon problem must 
stand for prohibition. He says he will come back into Ohio 
in October and help to undo the harm he has done this 
State, by going as nearly as possible to every city in the 
State where he has spoken for the liquor traffic and plead 
for the prohibition cause. 

The Tax Problem 

A few misinformed citizens still believe that saloons help 
to reduce taxes. If this be true the municipality, county, 
or State, that has the largest number of saloons should have 
the largest balance on the right side of the ledger. Its 
indebtedness should be less, and the large amount of license 
money that comes into the treasury should make a very light 
tax. Look at these facts from Ohio municipalities. 



Facts from Ohio Municipalities 
(Latest statistics.) 





Cleveland 


Cincinnati 


Columbus 


Toledo 


Dayton 




$566,000 
43,317,140 
11,312,680 


$428,000 
61,480,000 
7,827,790 


$202,000 
16,629,199 
3,317,523 


$188,000 
10,756,812 
3,526,790 


$138,000 
5,179,400 
2,134,552 



The facts indicate that even though a city receives a large 
amount of license money^ heavy taxes and bonded indebted- 
ness are necessary to run a city government. 

The last General Assembly appointed a commission to 
try and devise ways and means for lessening the burden in 
the cities or find a sufficient revenue to pay the running 
expenses of the cities. The liquor interests at once said — 
turn all the liquor tax into the municipalities. The report 
of that commission shows that in proportion to the cost of 

47 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



institutions made necessary by the saloon, and the revenue 
raised, they are paying about seventy-six per cent of the cost 
they make in municipalities and less than fifty per cent in 
the State. The saloon is always a liability to every com- 
munity. This is one of the reasons why the Liquor Dealers' 
Liability Law was introduced to make the liquor dealers 
of Ohio pay for some of the damage they do their patrons 
and their patrons' families. Let the liquor dealers of Ohio 
foot this bill for a year or two and they would all be in the 
hands of a receiver. 

The report from the Minister of Finance in Russia says 
that in December, 1913, with vodka shops everywhere, the 
savings of the Russian people amounted to but |350,000. 
In 1914, with prohibition, the savings were |14,500,000. 

We Will Be in Good Company This Year 

We do not go into the fight this year alone. All around 
us we will have fighting comrades. West Virginia has 
already planned to establish auxiliary headquarters on the 
border line and send us speakers and facts. A score of men 
will be available, if need be, to come into Ohio to answer 
the falsehoods of the liquor dealers concerning that State. 
We will be in the midst of winning fights all through the 
campaign. In September South Carolina will vote, and no 
one doubts the result in that State. Mne States have 
abolished the saloon within the last six months. Montana, 
New Mexico, Vermont, and Nebraska are planning for the 
fight within the next year. The reports will be coming 
in from the States where the saloons are abolished telling 
of reduced crime and increased prosperity. It will put 
fighting blood into the veins of our Ohio citizenship. 

Within the next sixteen months a majority of the States 
of this Union will be under the white flag of prohibition. 
Facing these facts, is there a quitter in the ranks here in 
Ohio? Our slogan must be "Forward, March! close the 
lines, and move on to final victory." 

48 



THE CHRISTIAN MOTIVE IN SOCIAL REFORM 



The Christian Motive in Social Reform^ 
Dr. George P. Eckman 

The dream of America without a saloon is rapidly being 
realized, and the rum oligarchy is coming to understand 
that what has been hoped for by the friends of righteousness 
is soon to become a fact in the national life of this country. 

At first they did not pay much heed to the movement. 
They did not even blink their dreamy eyes at it. They 
thought it was too small and inconsiderable for their atten- 
tion. Presently they began to laugh at it because it had 
attracted some attention, but they considered it absolutely 
ridiculous. They sneered at the women who knelt before 
the saloon doors. Then there came a time when very 
foolishly and incautiously they attempted to argue the ques- 
tion. That was the beginning of their decline. Then there 
came another time in which it was apparent that the country 
was being aroused, and something must be done to stem 
the tide of opposition to the organized liquor traffic. Science 
was lending its assistance, and the highest intellects all 
the world over were confirming the desirability of the utter 
abolition of the use of alcoholic beverages. And then when 
there came before the world the more recent national 
attitude toward the liquor traffic, the organized rum busi- 
ness of this country began to withdraw itself from the 
public gaze so far as possible, and is now hastening to 
run to cover. It will speedily be calling upon the hills and 
rocks to fall upon it to conceal it from the wrath of the 
American people and of Almighty God. 

The prohibition victory is coming. That we may the more 
speedily bring it on, we need every man to reaffirm the 
principles upon which this great movement is to be con- 
ducted by those who call themselves not only citizens of the 
United States but also of the Commonwealth of the House 
of God. The principles that underlie this movement are 

49 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



necessarily the principles that underlie every social reform. 

Professor Peabody has said that the difference between 
Socialism and Christianity is that Socialism is seeking to 
make poor men rich, and Christianity is seeking to make 
bad men good. 

We are to tackle this temperance question because the 
saloon is an enemy to the financial integrity of the country 
and to the material welfare of the individual citizen, because 
the saloon is a menace to social order, because the saloon is 
the one supremely nefarious influence by which our political 
life is becoming debauched. The saloon is against health 
and order, and all the interests of mankind as we study 
them from the standpoint of the economic values. But above 
all these considerations is the fact that the saloon under 
the leadership of the devil is the scourge by which human 
souls are driven to hell; and because these souls are im- 
mortal and their spiritual interests are of far more value 
than are their temporal interests, we who call ourselves 
Christians must work on a purely moral and spiritual basis. 

The Christian motive is one that far surpasses any eco- 
nomic or prudential motive. Men point out the fact that 
this terrible struggle going on between labor and capital is 
striking at the very heart of the order of society, and there- 
fore we must see to it that the breach is healed. They say 
to us that the women are called upon to bear burdens too 
heavy for their shoulders; that this evil must be corrected. 
They say that hundreds of children are being poured into 
the greedy maw of selfishness, and therefore great harm 
is being done to our social life. They say that this great 
gulf between the very rich and the very poor should be 
bridged. But any pagan could see those things as clearly 
as does the Christian. The Christian motive for the healing 
of the sores of our social organism is the motive that im- 
pelled Jesus Christ to give His life for men and women that 
He might redeem them from the curse of sin. That is the 
motive that must be uppermost in our minds to-day. 

50 



THE OHEISTIAN MOTIVE IN SOCIAL REFOEM 



Why was the hull of the Maine taken out of the harbor of 
Havana? Why did Congress appropriate a large sum of 
money to raise it? Doubtless due in part to a patriotic 
sentiment, and to a feeling of regard for that ship; but 
chiefly because that old beaten hull of the Maine was a 
menace to navigation. That is the thing which sometimes 
urges the citizens of this country to do something for the 
relief of the great social distress of our time. You say the 
drunkard is a menace, the prostitute is a peril to civilization, 
and you are right. You say this great disparity between 
the rich and the poor is an intolerable condition which is 
bound to do harm to the republic. But if you have no better 
motive than these considerations, you are not much better 
than the pagan who is enlightened to the situation and who 
say these evils must be remedied. 

A minister was traveling across a lake from one place to 
another. A storm arose and a box containing his books and 
manuscripts was dumped into the waters of the lake. They 
succeeded in recovering the box, but he found that the 
waters of the lake had washed away every particle of the 
ink from those precious sermons. When he held up the 
paper to the light he saw that his own writing had been 
effaced, but the water mark of the manufacturer still sur- 
vived. That is a parable of human life. God made man in 
His own image — you may blur that image, but you cannot 
blot it out. Down there in the mud and slime and mire, 
down there where life is almost extinct, the image of God 
is on the face of the bruised and broken man. And to restore 
that image to its original beauty is the only motive that 
will sustain us in our social efforts. 

I read a book the other day about Africa. In it there was 
a story of an English traveler who was watching a number 
of men putting out on a craft on the river. After reaching 
the middle of the stream they were thrown into the river 
and only one came to the surface, and as the white traveler 
watched him he saw a black boy of six or seven years of 

51 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



age on the shoulders of the African clinging for dear life. 
When the African came to the shore the English traveler 
rushed out and said, "You are a brave man ; you have saved 
that boy's life." "O, yes, I saved his life all right," was 
the reply. "I tried many times to shake him off, but he clung 
too tight." That is true with regard to much of the work 
that is done by the State, by the city, by the country. The 
needy and the distressed cling to us ; we would shake them 
off if we could, but because this is impossible we relieve their 
distress. 

A Chinese convert was once trying to explain the differ- 
ence between Christianity and the religions of the East. He 
said a man had fallen into a pit and he could not get 
himself out of his sorry plight. There came a priest that 
way. He looked down into the pit and said: "I am very 
sorry for you. If you could reach up your hand, I would 
reach down and deliver you from this plight." But he 
could not raise himself even an inch. Then came Confucius 
that way. He heard the man's cries and leaned down and 
said : "I wish I could help you. How did you get into this 
condition ? Let me give you a piece of advice. If you ever 
get out of this pit, be sure never to fall into it again." Then 
J esus Christ came that way and heard his wails. He leaned 
clear down to the bottom of the pit and took the man by 
the wrist and lifted him out, and sent him on his way saying, 
"Go and sin no more." That is the kind of thing we Chris- 
tian men and women must do. Unless we have the motive 
of the Christ who reached clear down into the pit, and unless 
we have the dynamic by which He was able to lift that man 
out of the pit, we shall not be able to save society, however 
sagacious we may think ourselves and however profound 
may be our diplomacy. 

[After the addresses concerning the liquor fight, Dr. Doughty 
led the convention in prayer, as follows] 

I feel that there is only one thing that we can do after 

52 



THE CHRISTIAN MOTIVE IN SOCIAL REFORM 



these addresses, and that is to pray. There will be some- 
thing else required of ns soon, but just at this moment I 
want to call this convention literally to the knees. I would 
like to have ascending from this place for the next seven 
or eight minutes more than two thousand prayers. I am 
going to ask you to be absolutely quiet, and then one after 
another I will suggest subjects for intercession. 

First, let us all pray for the churches in this fight in 
Ohio, that they may be true to Christ's call. 

And shall we lift up our hearts unitedly to pray for all 
the Christian pastors of Ohio, that they may be heroes in 
this fight. 

Once again, shall we lift up our hearts to Almighty God 
that the laymen may respond and may bear what it is going 
to cost of money and of advocacy and of loss in order that 
this fight may be put through. 

Now shall we pray for our public officials in Ohio, that 
the men may have the courage to put into office the kind 
of men that will see this kind of a moral and spiritual 
program put through. 

And now shall we not with one heart give prayer to 
Almighty God for a saloonless Ohio. 

Once more, shall we not pray for a saloonless America. 

Let us pray for all the editors of our Christian nation 
and the editors of Christian papers. 

Shall we now lift our hearts and pray to God for Bishop 
Anderson in his leadership; and for Wayne Wheeler in 
his leadership; and for Clarence True Wilson, and for all 
the other men who are leading in the great temperance fight 
through the nation. 

Shall we lift up a prayer to God for Billy Sunday to 
continue his mighty warfare against the saloon. 

Let us pray for the Anti-Saloon Convention at Atlantic 
City. 

Also let us pray not simply for a saloonless Ohio and a 
saloonless America, but for a saloonless world. 

53 



THE CHALLENGE OP TO-DAY 



O Christ, we look once more into Thy face and once more 
we pray that we may drink deeply of Thy relentless spirit 
of enmity to all the enemies of mankind, and may we go 
out from this time of intercession with set faces and an 
inflexible will to see this thing through. O Christ, may we 
put on the whole armor of God, that we may stand our 
ground on the day of battle and having fought to the end 
may remain victors on the field. This we pray in the one 
name that will prevail, the name of the Great Captain and 
living leader, even Jesus Christ. Amen. 



The Challenge of This Day to the Trained Youth 
of the Church 

Harris Franklin Kall^ Professor-Elect of Systematic 
Theology in Garrett Biblical Institute 

One phrase stands out in the theme that has been assigned 
to me: "This Day." When Charles Sumner entered the 
United States Senate he found a place of quiet and content, 
whose great leaders folded their arms and talked of past 
glories. "You have come upon the stage too late," said 
Senator Benton to him. "All our great men have passed 
away — Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster are gone. 
The great issues raised by our form of government are 
settled also. Nothing is left, sir, but puny sectional ques- 
tions or petty strifes about fugitive slave laws involving no 
national interests." When Sumner ended his career twenty 
years later, this nation had passed through the most mo- 
mentous epoch of her history, and Sumner had been one 
of her great leaders in that time of trial. 

The first challenge of every great day is to the vision of 
men. Great days are behind us; a greater day is upon us. 
There is only one epoch in Christian history that can com- 
pare with this generation. Nineteen hundred years ago 

U 



CHALLENGE TO TRAINED YOUTH OF THE OHUECH 



Christianity faced such a day. The barriers between nations 
had broken down; a new empire was coming to its own. 
Travel, commerce, and wealth grew apace; but with luxury 
and self-indulgence on one side, grew bitter poverty and 
slavery upon the other. The old faiths were crumbling; the 
old standards of conduct were disregarded; the empire 
spread abroad in power of arms, but its inner life was mov- 
ing on to decay, and all this time the countless multitudes 
were feeling ever more deeply the pressure of life's burdens, 
and groping for some message that would save them. 

What was true of the little world about the Mediterranean 
is true of our big world to-day, where the open doors of one 
single nation show more people than all that old empire 
contained. To-day again old faiths and old standards are 
breaking down, while the needs of life grow deeper and 
more insistent. It is not only the message for the single 
soul that is needed, as it always has been; there is need 
for a gospel that shall command state and industry as well, 
that shall rule the life of nations as of men, that shall bring 
not only a command and a faith, but a transforming power 
of life. 

Paul met the challenge of his day because he had a vision. 
His was no petty parochial Christianity. Jerusalem was 
too small for him; Antioch was too small. He saw an 
empire, and he saw a gospel that was the power of God for 
all that empire's needs. The first challenge is a challenge of 
vision. The religion that sees only one parish, one denomina- 
tion, one country, is passing away. The challenge to-day is 
for a religion as large as life itself. 

The second challenge is the challenge of faith. Have we 
a gospel for this greater world as Paul had for his ? 

That challenge comes to us, first of all, from the foreign 
field. What that challenge is I need not state after the 
messages that we have had from Mr. Mott. But there are 
two facts that need to be driven home to the consciousness 
of the whole Church. The first is the fact that this day is 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



a passing day. I do not say that doors that are open will be 
closed for good, but they will never be so wide open again. 
We have seen the wonder in our day. The forces that have 
been gathering for centuries are having their way. The 
hard crust of ancient institutions has been broken. Science, 
democracy, a new nationalism, a new cry for liberty, a spirit 
of revolt — these are everywhere stirring. It is the hour 
of change; but change is not progress. Can Christianity 
master the tide and direct the current and fix the channels 
which the new life will finally take? 

The other great fact is the need of a larger gospel at home 
— a message for market as well as temple, a power that shall 
command all our life. That challenge is facing the new 
generation on the foreign field as well. Here is China, with 
her treasures of iron and coal in a single province beyond 
those of Pennsylvania, with her unmeasured resources in 
labor, with a market of her own unequaled and as yet 
untouched. All this means an industrial development in 
China during this century such as not England or Germany 
or America has seen, and that means all the problems of an 
industrial age. With nineteen Christian centuries behind us 
these problems are testing the very foundations in our own 
land. How shall China meet them? W^here shall she gain 
the light to guide and the moral power which will enable her 
to face those problems with that reverence for humanity and 
that passion for righteousness without which her last estate 
may be worse than the first? 

And that gives us our problem at home. Here in our own 
land we must show forth the full meaning of the gospel be- 
fore we can carry it effectively to others. How can we 
commend our gospel to China as the supreme rule in state 
and industry if we have not yet demonstrated in our own 
land what a Christian nation is? It is not enough to say, 
^^Here is our gospel which will satisfy your soul." It is not 
enough to point to our saints and show what Christ can do. 
We must be able to say, "Here is a state where government 

56 



CHALLENGE TO TRAINED YOUTH OF THE CHURCH 



is righteous, where the power of the whole body politic is at 
the service of the poor and the weak." We must be able to 
show an industry where there is work for every man that is 
willing to toil, where there is a living wage for the man that 
works, where children have a fair chance to get ready for life, 
where we care more for men than for dividends and more for 
righteousness than for our rights. Can we say that so long as 
men toil for twelve hours a day and work seven days a week ? 
so long as hundreds of thousands are out of work with a 
great army of children that must serve? When the leaders 
of China turn to us and say : "What do these foul tenements 
mean ? What are these houses of shame, where you sell your 
daughters, body and soul, and open for young men the paths 
that lead to hell? What does it mean that you license the 
sale of poison and then take the money stained with blood 
to carry on the state? We have slain the opium serpent in a 
decade; why cannot your Christian state slay the saloon 
dragon in a century?" What shall we say to such ques- 
tions? The challenge of this hour to the Christian Church 
is not simply to win America for Christ, but to make 
America Christian. That is no longer merely a home mission 
problem. It is to-day our biggest question in foreign mis- 
sions. 

The next great challenge to faith is the challenge of war. 
The tragedy of Western war is a handicap in every mission 
field of the East to-day. Its challenge comes not simply to the 
Christian, but to every man who has one drop of red blood 
that beats for his fellowmen. Here is the delusion that has 
cast its spell over millions of our fellows. What matters 
it whether they are driven into battle or march of their own 
free will ? What matters it that there is a rebirth of patriot- 
ism, or even a revival of religion? The great heartbreaking, 
damning facts of war remain. There is not one high and 
holy interest for which we have been fighting in the name 
of Christ that is not smitten by the spirit of this war. We 
have sought to make human life sacred. War has flung it 

57 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



forth for slaughter. We have taught the sacredness of talent 
and the divineness of service. The hand of the artist, the 
skill of the mechanic, the voice of the singer, the brain of 
the scholar, the brawn of the laborer, the spirit of the saint, 
the hopefulness of youth, and the wisdom of ripe years — we 
have had a vision of a new world in which humanity should 
conserve all these treasures for the sake of the life of the 
whole. War has taken them all — strong muscle, noble heart, 
trained mind; for the war they are only so many machines 
to slay and be slain. We have been summoning our forces 
for a new crusade, the war against poverty and disease and 
ignorance — the age-old forces that prey on human kind. 
Such a crusade demands not only a high purpose but great 
treasures as well. It is an economic as well as a moral cam- 
paign. War has sacrificed these in one great holocaust of 
hell. We have fought for the home. War has razed it to the 
ground. We have toiled for the new world of peace. War 
has come in to sow its seed of lives and reap its harvest of 
prejudice and bitterness and hatred. If war be the last 
word for our human race, then we have failed in all for 
which we have striven. 

There is only one answer that can be given. The answer is 
the ideal of Christ and the spirit of Christ. Slowly but 
surely the ideal and the spirit have been mastering the 
spheres of life in enlarging circles, first the family, then the 
neighborhood, the state and the nation. Slowly but surely 
we have been seeing that not in strife and disunion but in 
the truth of brotherhood and the law of service does the 
largest welfare of men lie. Men were never before so sure of 
that message as it concerns home and community and nation. 
We must take one step more and make it apply to the family 
of the nations. The gospel of Christ is a war against war, 
and the spirit of Christ alone can bring the new day. On 
the heights of the Andes, looking out over the Pacific, there 
stands a great figure of the Christ. Here where hostile 
armies clashed in the days past there stands this figure sur- 



CHALLENGE TO TEAINED YOUTH OP THE CHURCH 



mounting the globe which sets forth the world that He is to 
rule. On the pedestal beneath are written these words: 
"These mountains shall crumble to dust ere Chilian and 
Argentinian break the peace which here at the feet of the 
Redeemer they have sworn to keep." Some time the nations 
shall find their way to that same place, and the new peace 
of the world shall come at the feet of Christ. 

There is one other challenge to our faith — the challenge 
that concerns the Church. Some one is saying: "You are 
challenging men to enlist in the Church; but is it not the 
Church that has failed? Look at Europe. Where is the 
Church's protest against war ? Look at our own land. Why 
has not her voice been raised against injustice in industry 
and unrighteousness in our social life? Look at our divided 
forces. The forces of evil were never so strong, the battle 
never so fierce, and the Church stands disunited. 

Now, we cannot say a simple "No" to that charge; but 
there are two facts that we must see clearly. First of all, 
the Church is in the making. It is not a finished Church. 
It is formed of fallible men and women and it is not yet the 
Church that it is to be. Second, fallible though it is, it is 
this Church that is the hope of men. It is this Church that 
has preserved the Scriptures, that teaches the gospel. But 
that is not all. There never was a day when the Church was 
girding itself more earnestly for its task. The great critics 
of the Church in this day are men within the Church, 
honestly, searchingly looking at the Church in the light of 
the world's needs and the Master's great purpose. There is 
a new day coming in the Christian Church, and the new day 
is set forth in such a gathering as this. Once the Church 
meant simply her priests or pastors; to-day it means this 
great body of Christian men. Once the churches were shut 
up each in its little parish ; but there is not a church repre- 
sented here to-day that is not reaching out in its influence 
through all the world. Once the Church dreamed only of 
heaven ; now we are praying "Thy kingdom come on earth," 

59 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



and toiling for the day when the will of God shall be done 
in all the life of men. Once we talked about maintaining the 
Church ; now we talk about setting up the Kingdom. Once 
the Church tried to save itself ; now we know that the rule 
of the Church is the rule of all Christian life — the rule of 
service. We measure the Church to-day by what it is doing 
in its community for the world. Once we made much of the 
forms of doctrine which separated us; now we make every- 
thing of that loyalty to Jesus Christ in service, in which we 
are slowly but surely drawing together. The Church is mak- 
ing ready for the new day, and her service is the biggest 
opportunity that faces the trained youth of this age. 

The final challenge is the challenge to devotion. The call 
to-day is not simply for a new vision and a new faith, but for 
men who, in the light of the faith and the vision, will con- 
secrate themselves to the task. That means a new generation 
of captains of industry and leaders of labor, of journalists 
and of makers of law. But it is more than that. Above all 
we need a new generation of trained young men that see the 
work that lies at the bottom. The problem that lies before 
us is a moral problem — how to bring the message of Christ, 
the method of Christ, and the spirit of Christ into the 
thought and life of our world to-day. The men who must 
do that are our Christian teachers and preachers. The 
greatest opportunity to-day is the opportunity of the 
ministry. Here is the place where, with least loss of power, 
with the most direct access to men, the opportunity is given 
of bringing the dynamic of the gospel to bear upon the age. 
A group of men gathered together not long since at a supper 
given in honor of the publisher and owner of a number of 
daily newspapers. Here was a man whose printed sheets 
went into hundreds of thousands of homes, and yet when 
he stood up to speak he said, "I went into the newspaper 
business because I could not be a preacher." More striking 
still is the word of that great socialist and labor leader of 
England, Mr. Keir Hardie : "If I were a thirty years younger 

60 



BEAEING OF THE WAR ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 



man with the experience I have gained during the past 
thirtj-five years, I would abandon house and home and wife 
and child, if need be, to go forth among the people to 
proclaim afresh the full message of the gospel of Jesus of 
Nazareth." 

The young men of to-day are answering that challenge. 
The young men have always answered the hard challenges. 
It is told of the Clan Cameron, of Scotland, that once a 
year their men and young men were all gathered together 
at the mouth of the River Firth. Where its sweet waters 
mingle with the salt of the sea, the men in battle array 
gathered together. There in the form of a cross they laid 
their battle-axes on the ground. There each year they 
renewed their oath of allegiance and then raised together 
their battle cry: "Shoulders together, shoulders together, 
shoulders together. Clan Cameron." It is ours to-day not 
simply as the Methodist men of Ohio but as part of God's 
forces in our great land to raise that cry as we renew 
our allegiance, "Shoulders together, shoulders together, 
shoulders together, for Christ and for His cause." 



The Bearing of the War on Christian Missions 

John R. Mott 

In recent months I had the sacred privilege, as well as 
the sad privilege, of being in the war zone of Europe; and 
I will say that I have come back much older than I was a 
few months ago. I would be a hypocrite were this not the 
case. No man could see what I have been obliged to see 
without being a changed man; and no man could listen to 
what I have heard and not have the springs of vitality 
sapped. I have been going to Europe nearly every year for 
twenty-five years, but I have never known Europe until this 

61 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



time. I have come to see that you cannot know a nation, 
just as you cannot know an individual, until you see that 
nation subjected to an impossible strain. Then you see the 
lines of least resistance; then you become aware of the 
weaknesses, as well, happily, as of the strains of power. I 
have looked into the very soul of the great European peoples, 
and I say reverently I have entered into fellowship with 
their sufferings. Naturally, I received impressions over 
there just as you would here even at long range. I was 
impressed in each nation by the fact that the people of 
that nation are perfectly united. There may be rifts of 
division — in my judgment there are rifts of division beneath 
the surface — in each nation now at war, but they are not 
apparent. Everywhere you are impressed with the solidarity 
of the nation. In France I found Eoman Catholics, Jews, 
Protestants, agnostics blending their age-long differences in 
a common loyalty and devotion. In Germany I could hardly 
believe what I found, in view of my earlier experience, that 
the social democrats and the imperial government had 
formed a wondrous unity. So in each of the other nations. 
I received the impression that in each country the people 
are not only perfectly united but absolutely determined. If 
you ask me to name the nation which gave me evidence of 
having the least will power, I would be unable to answer 
your question, because nowhere did I find evidence of flabbi- 
ness of will, weakness of purpose, or want of staying power. 
That lends tragedy to the situation. 

Take France. I read a book written by a Eoman Catholic 
ecclesiast, entitled France Herself Again. The writer was 
showing how in recent years France has reverted to her best 
type; and how tremendously the events of the recent months 
have accentuated his main contention ! Instead of that old 
emotional, changeable, volatile, talkative France with which 
you and I are familiar, I found a people characterized by 
wonderful poise, calm, not speaking, fixed in their purpose, 
steady — but not more than any other nations which I visited 

62 



BEARING OF THE WAR ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 



on both sides of the struggle. In each country I found the 
people not only perfectly united and absolutely determined, 
but fully confident. I did meet here and there a German 
who doubted as to their ultimate success on the sea, but I 
never met a German who had any doubt whatever as to their 
success on the land, nor have I since heard of one. 

In each country I found the people trying to justify their 
position before all the other nations of the world, and in 
particular before the United States of America. They seem 
to look upon us as a supreme court. And, by the way, it 
impressed me with our tremendous responsibility. Among 
the thousands of conversations which I had with leading 
men of all these nations, as well as with men in humble 
walks of life, sooner or later an attempt was made to dis- 
cover what was the present or probable attitude of the 
American toward their particular position. 

When people tell you that this war gives evidence of the 
breaking down of Christianity, they are not thinking 
straight. There has been no circumstance which has so 
revealed the fact that Christianity has been getting in its 
work. In connection with what previous w^ar or occasion 
have we had such abundant proof that conscience has been 
educated so that to-day one finds it troubled and seeking to 
justify itself? And that reminds me that to-day in each 
land at war they are using the phrase "holy war." If you 
were to ask me which country regards it as the most holy 
war, I might say Russia. In all my visits I have been im- 
pressed with the thought that the Russian people, as a whole, 
are among the most religious of people, possibly with the 
exception of the British Indians. I do not know that I 
should make that exception. The Russians go literally from 
their knees to the war. 

Likewise in France, how different it seemed! for instead 
of finding, as I have in all my earlier visits, that the edu- 
cated classes and the governing classes, and the virile men 
in general, were indifferent concerning religion, this year I 

63 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



found not only the churches and chapels, but the cathedrals, 
packed to their outer limits, not by women only, but by all 
classes of men not called to the colors. I had a letter a week 
ago from a friend in Paris telling of a prominent representa- 
tive of the government, who had just come back from the 
front, investigating a certain department of the war, and 
he had only one criticism to make, and he is an agnostic: 
"My only criticism at the front is that our soldiers are 
becoming too religious." 

In Germany, not only on Sundays but on week nights, 
and often in the daytime, you will find the churches and 
chapels thronged. No regiment thinks of going to the front 
without the holy sacrament. The song that I heard most, 
sung by the soldiers of Germany, and they were singing 
much of the time, was not "Die Wacht am Ehein," not 
"Deutschland tiber Alles," but the Luther Hymn, and my 
attention was called to the fact of how they repeated over 
and over again the familiar second stanza — you recall it. 

The other day, coming down from Manchester, England, 
I was talking with an English soldier invalided home as 
a result of concussion from shell fire. A large number of 
men are wounded by shell fire. I have read that seventy 
per cent of the wounded are wounded by shell fire. But in 
addition to this, many men, even of the strongest nerves, 
break down sooner or later, because of this steady shell fire, 
and are invalided home or sent back among the reserves 
for the time being. This was one of those men, a Christian 
man. He said to me, "It was awfully hard for us in a 
certain action to turn the machine guns on a German regi- 
ment as it came forward, when we heard the familiar strains 
of the Luther Hymn." 

The colossal dimensions of this war are everywhere in 
evidence. It is colossal, gentlemen, when it has called to 
the colors in the belligerent countries alone a little over 
twenty millions of men ; and if you add the neutral countries 
where they have been mobilized, nearly four million more 

64 



BEARING OF THE WAR ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 



in Italy, the Balkan group, Switzerland, Holland and the 
Scandinavian group, the dimensions become truly colossal. 

I crossed Germany the other day — a beautiful day. The 
sleeper service had been cut off, and I went all the way 
through by day. We passed over two hundred thousand 
soldiers. I was reminded of what Bismarck, looking for- 
ward to the time that his country would have enemies on 
both fronts, once said, that Germany will have three armies, 
one on the East, one on the West, and one on the eisenbahn. 
Germany seems to move whole divisions in this war to the 
French and Polish borders, six hundred miles, with the 
same facility as in earlier wars they moved regiments from 
one position to an adjacent position. 

It is a costly war. Part of the time I was in Germany I 
was the guest of the under secretary of the finance depart- 
ment of the imperial government, a friend of mine of many 
years standing. In other nations I conferred with similar 
authorities. I have come to the conclusion, and I have no 
reason to change my opinion, that the actual daily expenses 
for purely military and naval purposes, since August first, 
in all the nations combined that are now at war, has been 
a little over |37,000,000 gold, and some estimates are over 
150,000,000. That is the smallest part of it. If you add the 
work of demolition in northern France, as one sees it every- 
where in Belgium, still more in Poland, where over nine 
thousand towns and villages have been destroyed, then in 
Galicia, on the eastern borders of Prussia and in Russia 
proper, the price mounts. Then when you remember that 
nearly all of the armies outside of the British Isles are con- 
scriptive, that is, that not only peasants, but also bankers, 
doctors, lawyers, wealthy men, are invariably sumoioned 
to the ranks, and that you take out of the productive and 
the constructive work of the nations the most virile, the 
most purposeful, and the best-equipped men, the price fur- 
ther mounts. 

While crossing Germany the other day I was impressed 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



by the extent to which the industries had been halted. In 
northern France I found that the provinces that produced 
more manufactured products than all the rest of France 
were largely tied up. Belgium, the most highly organized 
industrial nation of the world, was tied up absolutely. In 
England, a little further removed from the center of the 
war zone, the great industries have been contracted. Then 
when you think of our own nation, and every other neutral 
country, where you can point to activities that have been 
brought to a halt by this war, the price mounts. And if 
you add what it costs to produce a man and bring him up 
to the point where he is shot dead, and realize that over 
seven hundred thousand men have been killed, you begin 
to get a larger conception of the price that is being paid. 
Did I say seven hundred thousand? The number now is 
considerably over a million slain. When I called on our 
ambassador, Mr. Page, in London, I mentioned this to him, 
and he said, ^'I cannot take it in." But, gentlemen, I begin 
to take it in. 

The first home I visited in Europe was one in Germany. 
My host said thirty-one of his family had been called to 
the war, and that nine of the thirty-one had been killed 
or wounded. And the last home that I visited was that 
of Lord Balfour, of Burleigh. He thought his older son 
was captured, but he learned that he had been killed five 
weeks before. He received a letter of condolence while I was 
there. As he read he choked up and he said, "Mott, finish 
it for me." So it was, going from one house of tears to 
another. 

It is a suffering Europe. Before I left there over three 
million had been wounded. A large portion have what they 
call clean wounds, and are therefore patched up and sent 
into the fight again ; but making all allowance for this, the 
numbers which have been added since I left — I am well 
within the facts, as I can prove — make nearly four millions 
of wounded. Can we take that in? A friend of mine in eight 

66 



BEAEING OF THE WAK ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 



days counted in Belgium one hundred and fifty-one railway 
trains, averaging twenty railway carriages each, or over 
three thousand railway cars, filled with the German 
wounded, moving eastward. It reminded me of rivers of 
pain. There are similar trains in Austria-Hungary. I have 
seen those rivers of pain in France, and there are more of 
those trains in Russia than possibly in any other country 
in this war. I have seen them in England also. 

The other day in Paris a friend of mine took me to the 
French lines. We went through the beautiful valley of the 
Marne, to the valley of the Aisne, within sound of the great 
guns by the trenches. I counted the fifteenth hospital — 
there are more than that — and I saw the rivulets and the 
gushing torrents coming out — rivers of pain. But there is 
another kind of pain over there; it is that dull pain, that 
insistent pain, that pain ever present in every conscious 
moment, and therefore working in the unconscious moment 
that causes mothers, daughters, sisters, even little children, 
to start in the night. Truly, it is a suffering Europe. It is 
stretched on a cross. But, thank God, it is an unselfish 
Europe. 

I was expecting to enter into a difficult negotiation on 
the continent, which necessitated my asking certain people 
for help. I asked Mr. Page if it would not be a presumptu- 
ous thing for me to request help from strangers, and he 
said, "You will not find a selfish man or woman in Europe." 
I suppose they do not think it out, but if they do, they 
probably think it this way: "While millions are stretched 
on beds of pain and hundreds of thousands are laying down 
their lives, God help us to do something to help relieve the 
strain and suffering." 

I reached Holland two days after the fall of Antwerp. 
They had already taken in over one million Belgian refugees. 
They were not complaining; they w^ere not boasting of their 
lot; they were rising to the occasion. I have never seen a 
whole nation unselfish before. Town after town had more 

67 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Belgian refugees in it than Dutch. Before I left England 
they were arriving in that country eight or nine thousand 
a day, and the English, Welsh, and Scotch were eager to 
get them. Before I sailed from Britain the British people 
had given over |20,000,000 for benevolent funds, and have 
given vastly more since. Imagine my feelings when I landed 
in New York, when I saw in the New York Times that up 
to that time our aggregate gifts had been but about $1,000,- 
000. We have been doing better recently. We are beginning 
to get under the load. 

What are the effects of this war? No doubt you have 
read them between the lines. You cannot spend each day 
for purely military and naval purposes more than all the 
Protestant and Roman Catholic missionary societies in the 
world are spending in a year on the expansion of the Chris- 
tian religion, without cutting into the present and future 
resources of civilization. You cannot turn the machine guns 
on the most virile men of the strongest nations of Europe, 
and keep them turned on, without cutting into the next 
generation as well as this one. In this w^ar the guns do not 
stop, it is a solid siege. They have spent more days fighting 
than we did in the Civil War. My friend in Paris said, "We 
make sixty thousand bullets per day, and we use fifty 
thousand per day.'' Something leads me to believe that this 
war will not last beyond another winter. There have been 
a little more than forty thousand men a day killed, wounded, 
and imprisoned, more nearly forty-five thousand. You can- 
not stand this indefinitely. 

It was a sad sight in Germany to see four hundred and 
eighty thousand new young recruits in their new uniforms. 
They distributed these beautiful boys twenty years of age 
to the two fronts, and put them in with the veterans, and 
there many were mowed down like wheat. And it brought 
tears to my eyes in England and Scotland to see the flower 
of those British Isles sent to certain death. The man who 
says these are not adverse results is thinking superficially. 

68 



BEAEING OF THE WAK ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 



They are cutting down the leaders, not only of the present 
but of the next generation. 

I am grateful to add there are favoring considerations in 
connection with this war. One is that this war has demon- 
strated, as nothing else has done, the strength of the inter- 
national Christian bonds, as manifested in movements like 
the Young Men's Christian Association, the Students' Chris- 
tian Movement and the missionary movement. During my 
trips in the past twenty-five years over there I have built 
up an acquaintance of thousands in those countries, includ- 
ing leaders, and therefore I can bring you accurate word 
that I know by name men who have the confidence of millions 
in each of these countries, who have entered into an 
agreement that in these Christian enterprises, after they 
have fought out as citizens their political differences, they 
will instantly resume constructive cooperation after the 
war. 

I have seen the greatest miracle that the world has ever 
seen. It is the miracle the enemies of Christianity in the 
early days of the Christian era had in mind when they said, 
"Behold, how these Christians love one another!" I know 
people on both sides of this struggle. By what they are 
doing behind each other's backs I know that there is some- 
thing in the world that Christ released when he said, "Love 
your enemies." I do not find it springing up from any 
other source. 

Another favoring consideration is that it is revealing the 
helpfulness of international bonds. Now I have seen the 
strong nations helping the weak nations. I have seen the 
neutral countries springing to the relief of the belligerent 
countries. The little countries put us to shame — Switzer- 
land, Holland, Denmark. 

Another favoring consideration is that it is revealing the 
necessity of those international Christian bonds. This war 
will not be followed by over forty years of international 
revenge as in the case of the Franco-Prussian war; neither 

69 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



will it be followed, as in our Civil War, by the division of 
whole churches, which are still rent in twain. It will be 
followed by an instant rebuilding of the great international 
structure. 

Another favoring consideration is that this war is reveal- 
ing the shortcomings of the nations, and it is always well 
to know our shortcomings. This reflection is with me, gen- 
tlemen, by day and by night. What might we not have done 
if all leading citizens of our nation, in common with the 
other nations, had been busy throwing down strands of 
international friendship, busy magnifying the good points 
of other nations, busy molding right attitudes between 
nations and other peoples ? Would we have drifted to these 
rocks? Certainly not. We will not drift to them again, if 
I understand the nations to-day. 

Another favoring consideration is that it has revealed 
capacities for vicariousness, for suffering, for sacrifice, and 
a heroism of which we have not dreamed. I have been 
criticized for saying that it will take twenty thousand of 
the best young men and women from our colleges to 
evangelize the world in this generation. You will never 
again hear me make such small demands on the colleges 
of Christendom. In Canada, in three of their greatest uni- 
versities, half of the students have volunteered. Before I 
left England fifty-six per cent of the students, and sixty-six 
per cent of the Christian students, and ninety per cent of 
the officers of the Christian Associations, had volunteered. 
Gentlemen, we have not been putting hard enough things 
on the students. There is a danger of bringing up a genera- 
tion in ease, in softness, and in extravagance. It is time 
to appeal to the heroic. They will respond and we will save 
our nation, and we will take our part in the world's work. 
This war is trying the faith of men by fire. I come to you 
to say that faith is being purified, that superstition is being ^ 
burned out. Men are not believing as many things, but the 
things they do believe are the things that count. The faith 

70 



BEARING OF THE WAR ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 



of Europe is being centered as never before, not in a vague, 
shadowy influence, but in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Another favoring consideration is that it is revealing 
the unparalleled opportunity for helpfulness and recon- 
struction. A year ago when I returned from the Far East 
I was able to report that all the nations in that ancient part 
of the world were in a plastic condition, but I never thought 
I would live to say what I now say, that Egypt, Russia, and 
Turkey are now plastic. And, more striking still, I say that 
Europe is now in the melting pot. 

I spent an evening with President Wilson not long ago, 
and in answer to his inquiry as to the principal impression 
I had received in Europe, I said : "Mr. President, if I may 
express it in Scripture language it would be ^As your faith, 
so be it unto you.' " And by you I meant America. When 
this war is over, the nations now engaged in it will be ex- 
hausted economically, exhausted vitally, and I am afraid I 
must say exhausted largely in hope, in faith, in courage. 
Then America, with unspent energies, with the spirit of 
prophecy, with courage, not afraid of her strength, not afraid 
of her idealism, if she is sufficiently unselfish, may help meet, 
as we have never dreamed, even in the days of our fathers, 
the needs of the nations. May we not be found wanting at 
a time like this, when whole nations are stretched on a 
Calvary cross. How incongruous at such a moment it 
would be for America to drift into zones of selfishness. 
Rather may she preserve a true neutrality, keep her moral 
powder dry until the psychological moment, and then not 
be afraid of her destiny. 



71 



PART II 
THE RESOURCES 



The Transcendent Importance of Prayer 
John R. Mott 

Prayer and missions are as inseparable as faith and 
works; in fact, prayer and missions are faith and works. 
Jesus Christ, by precept, by command, and by example, has 
shown with great clearness and force that He recognizes 
the greatest need of the enterprise of world-wide evangeliza- 
tion to be prayer. Before give and before go comes pray. 
This is the divine order. Anything that reverses or alters 
it inevitably leads to loss or disaster. This is strikingly 
illustrated in the wonderful achievements of the early Chris- 
tians, which were made possible by their constant employ- 
ment of the irresistible hidden forces of the prayer kingdom. 
They ushered in Pentecost by prayer. When they wanted 
laborers they prayed. When the time came to send forth 
laborers the Church was called together to pray. Their 
great foreign missionary enterprise, which carried forward 
its work so rapidly through the Roman empire, began in 
prayer. One of the two reasons for establishing the order 
of deacons was that the apostles, that is, the leaders of the 
Church, might give themselves to prayer. When persecu- 
tions came the Christians nerved and braced themselves 
by prayer. Every undertaking was begun, continued, and 
ended in prayer. In this we find one secret of the marvelous 
triumphs of the early Christian Church. 

The source of the spiritual vitality and power of any 
Christian movement is prayer. Our hope and confidence 
in this enterprise of world-wide missions are chiefly placed, 
not in the extent and strength of the missionary organiza- 
tion ; not in the number and power of the missionary force ; 
not in the fullness of the treasury and in well-appointed 

75 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



material equipment; not in the achievements of the past, 
even those of a spiritual character; not in the experience 
acquired by centuries of Christian missions; not in the 
methods and agencies which have been devised; not in the 
brilliancy and popularity of the leaders of the missionary 
movement at home and abroad; not in statesmanlike and 
farsighted policies and plans; not in enthusiastic forward 
movements and inspiring watchwords; upon none of these 
considerations do we rely principally, for it is "not by might, 
nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." 
The source of the power of any spiritual movement is God, 
and the energies of God are released in answer to prayer. 

Everything vital to the missionary enterprise hinges upon 
prayer. The opening of the difficult fields depends upon 
prayer. Some one has said that China was opened at the 
point of the lancet, but that is a very superficial observation, 
for prayer had made possible the work of medical missions 
in that field. Anyone who has studied the history of the 
pioneer missionaries of China and the cause of their going 
to lay siege to that great empire knows that prayer was the 
great unlocking force. Years ago it was said that the 
zenanas could not be opened to missionaries in India and in 
other parts of the Far East. It was the subject of much 
discussion. But while the discussion was in progress God 
swung the doors ajar in answer to fervent and faithful 
prayer and effort. 

Moreover, to batter down the walls of opposition, persecu- 
tion, and peril, prayer is as sufficient as it is essential. There 
has been no more heartening example of the reality of inter- 
cession than we have had in that marvelous group of facts 
connected with the raising of the siege of Peking. At a 
time when rationalists in Europe and in our own country 
have been loudly asserting that prayer does not have achiev- 
ing power, that it does not bring things to pass objectively, 
that it has simply a reflex influence, this experience has 
been an inspiring evidence in the eyes of the world, which 

76 



THE TEANSOENDENT IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER 



has challenged attention and has banished much of skepti- 
cism upon this subject. 

Are more workers needed? Prayer is the secret of secur- 
ing them. It is not alone by organizations, nor by fervent 
appeals, nor by multiplying the secretaries of the Student 
Volunteer Movement, that we are going to get all the work- 
ers needed. The one method which Jesus Christ emphasized 
for obtaining laborers is prayer, and He went to the center 
of every problem. "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the 
harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest.'' It 
is as wonderful as it is true that God has conditioned the 
going forth of the laborers upon the faithfulness of His 
own disciples in prayer. 

In 1872 the Church Missionary Society instituted the 
observance of a day of intercession in order that they might 
obtain more workers. In the five years preceding 1872 they 
sent out fifty-one missionaries; in the five years following 
that year, during which years they observed this day of 
special intercession, they sent out one hundred and twelve 
missionaries. 

In 1886 the China Inland Mission had two hundred mis- 
sionaries. A number of them met that year for an eight 
days' conference for Bible study and also for united prayer. 
While they were together they were led to unite in prayer 
that God would thrust forth into that mission during the 
year one hundred additional missionaries; and before the 
conference closed one of them suggested that they have a 
praise meeting to thank God for answering the prayer, 
"because," he said, "we shall not all be able to come together 
for that purpose a year hence." They did so. Within the 
following year there were six hundred who applied to be 
sent out; the mission selected and sent out one hundred 
of them. 

Is it money that we need? If so, in prayer again lies the 
deepest secret. 

Dr. and Mrs. Gulick, of Kyoto, wanted to assist some 

77 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



J apanese students to secure money for a Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association building in connection with, one of the 
government colleges in that city. They wanted only |2,000. 
Dr. Gulick wrote a letter to The Evangelist in New York, 
describing their need. That copy fell into the hands of a 
certain business man in New l^ork State. He read it and 
was vexed by it. He thought that there were enough regular 
appeals for financial help without having special appeals 
made. He put the paper away, but could not leave it : the 
matter kept troubling him. Finally, he took up the paper, 
read the article again, and dictated a letter to The Evan- 
gelist asking whether they had received the |2,000 needed. 
They replied that none of it had come in. He then wrote 
that he would give four installments of |500 each, that the 
building might be erected. Dr. and Mrs. Gulick and a group 
of Japanese students had been uniting daily in prayer for 
this definite object. 

George Muller received and disbursed during his lifetime 
over 17,000,000 without formally or directly appealing to 
men. He regarded prayer as the one explanation. If we 
were as anxious about enlisting the prayers of Christians 
as we are about securing their money, and if we made the 
obtaining of funds as much a matter of prayer as we are 
in the habit of making this a subject of discussions and of 
planning, we would have all the money needed for carrying 
on our missionary work. 

We need greater efficiency in all the missionary agencies 
and among all the various influences that are being exercised. 
There is being poured upon the world each year in Bibles 
and in Christian literature, in preaching and teaching, far 
more Christian truth than was proclaimed and disseminated 
in the Roman empire in many long years in the early history 
of Christianity. If the truth is not achieving as large re- 
sults proportionately as it did in those days, it is not the 
fault of the missionaries so much as it is the fault of Chris- 
tians at home, for not backing up their efforts that there 

78 



THE TRANSCENDENT IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER 



may be added the help of the Holy Spirit in the use of this 
truth. The truth does not convert men. It is the Spirit of 
God using the truth, and using us, who convicts men of sin 
and leads them to accept Christ as their Saviour; and the 
Holy Spirit works in answer to prayer. 

Thinking about the efficiency of agencies suggests the 
necessity of more prayer for the missionaries. I have met 
in my travels nearly two thousand missionaries, represent- 
ing about one hundred different missionary organizations, 
and their principal request was that there be enlisted in 
their behalf the prayers of home Christians. Louder than 
their cry, ''Brethren, come over and help us," there rang 
out the cry, "Brethren, pray for us." The day upon which 
you think the missionaries need your prayers least, they 
may need them most. 

We know not when the missionary stands before his great- 
est opportunity. We know not when fierce temptation may 
sweep in upon him like a flood. We know not the devices 
of the Adversary. Let the Scripture warning ring in our 
souls, "God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in 
ceasing to pray for you." I sin against myself in ceasing to 
pray for you, for such neglect makes me just so much more 
selfish and unsympathetic. I harm you in ceasing to pray 
for you, because I reduce your working power. But more 
serious still is it that I sin against God in ceasing to pray 
for you. We have no right to send our missionaries unless 
we mean to back them up with prayer; for God's power 
only, in answer to prayer, can enable them to overcome their 
hindrances. Therefore let us be faithful in praying for 
those who are not within the range of our vision, who are 
in fields of great difficulty and peril and trial and loneliness, 
and who without our prayers cannot do their largest and 
best work. 

Let us not forget to pray for the native Christians. Re- 
member that they have come up out of sin, superstition, and 
degradation. Remember how weak they are in many cases. 

79 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Eemember how fiercely they are tempted. Above all, re- 
member that from the ranks of the native Church are to 
come by far the larger part of the laborers who are to 
evangelize the world. 

Do we desire to witness spiritual awakenings on the mis- 
sion field? In prayer preeminently lies the secret. 

In 1883 a wave of rationalism and skepticism swept over 
the Doshisha, the leading Christian college of Japan, and 
it became very cold spiritually. Dr. Davis, one of the mis- 
sionaries there, recognized the power of intercession and 
wrote to over twenty colleges and theological seminaries of 
America, asking the students to unite in prayer for the 
Doshisha. Many Christian students heeded the request. On 
the night of the Day of Prayer for Colleges, when the 
American students united in prayer, the Doshisha students 
in different rooms, without any direct human influence being 
brought to bear upon them, were led to fall into conversa- 
tion on the subject of personal religion and to give them- 
selves to prayer. A revival began that very night and spread 
through the college. It resulted in the conversion of a large 
number of the students. 

Prayer is the greatest force that we can wield. It is the 
greatest talent which God has granted us. He has given 
it to every Christian. There is a democracy in this matter. 
We may differ among ourselves as to wealth, social position, 
educational equipment, native ability, inherited characteris- 
tics ; but in this matter of exercising the greatest force that 
is at work in the world to-day we are on the same footing. 
It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with 
a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the 
evangelization of the world as it is for those who stand 
in the most prominent positions. Therefore no one is excus- 
able if he commits the great sin of omitting to pray. 

Think of the blessing that we are withholding not only 
from ourselves but also from our churches, from our mission- 
aries, from the distant mission fields. What right have we 

80 



PRAYER INDISPENSABLE TO WORLD WINNERS 



to leave unappropriated or unapplied the greatest force 
that God has ordained for the salvation and transformation 
of men and for the inauguration and energizing of Christian 
movements ? 

Prayer Indispensable to World Winners 

W. E. DouGHTY_, Educational Secretary_, Laymen^s Mis- 
sionary Movement 

The deepest need of the Church is for a fresh discovery of 
God. If the Church is to break up and overcome the inertia 
and unbelief at home, and if she is to win back the lost 
frontiers and capture the unconquered citadels in the non- 
Christian world, she must have a deeper, fuller, freer, richer 
life in Christ. 

The Way Out 

How, then, are men to unlock the treasures of the heavenly 
world ? 

First. There must be a new going back into the fountains 
of unsullied truth in the Bible. Jesus Christ never becomes 
or remains real to men who cease the study of the Book. 
One of the tragic facts about the life of our day is that many 
men have lost the Bible out of their lives. The first great 
recovery is a recovery of the Word of God. 

Second. Men must be led to see that the missionary enter- 
prise should be a personal objective and ministry to every 
disciple of J esus Christ. The world will never be evangelized 
by preaching from the pulpit alone. It will be evangelized 
by the living testimony of men in the trades and professions, 
in the market places and highways. 

Third. There must be a rediscovery of the place and 
power of prayer in the spread of Christianity, with all the 
nnwithholding consecration, with all the calls for vicarious- 
ness that genuine prayer implies. 

81 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Three Forms of Prayer 

A simple classification sufficient for practical purposes 
is that there are three kinds of prayer — communion, petition, 
and intercession. As S. D. Gordon says, "Communion and 
petition store the life with the power of God: intercession 
lets it out on behalf of others." 

Many limit prayer to communion with God. To some 
prayer is a brooding, a dream, a reverie and nothing more. 
We agree with Tennyson that "solitude is the mother 
country of the strong," but that is not all that real prayer 
implies. There is much about God that can never be learned 
or experienced except as men join Him in the spiritual con- 
flict with evil which intercession implies. 

Often it is said that submission, acquiescence, is the high- 
est attitude of the soul. If submission means obedience to 
the will of God, this must always be the position taken by 
righteous men. All true prayer must of necessity revolve 
around the will of God. A genuine intercessor must always 
be able to say, 

"Not Thy gifts I seek, O Lord: 

Not Thy gifts, but Thee. 
What were all Thy boundless store 
Without Thyself, what less or more? 

Not Thy gifts, but Thee." 

This is, however, far from the whole truth. Those who 
assert that submission is the highest attitude a soul can take 
toward God often make a pious phrase a substitute for the 
moral and spiritual conflict which intercession includes and 
without which no man can grow into virile manhood. If the 
biographies of all the men of achievement in prayer, whether 
in Bible times or in modern times, were fully written, vastly 
more would be said about importunity than about submis- 
sion. Dr. P. T. Forsyth well says on this point: "We say 
too often, 'Thy will be done,' and too ready acceptance of 
tliis will often means feebleness and sloth. Prayer is an act 

82 



PRAYER INDISPENSABLE TO WORLD WINNERS 



of will much more than of sentiment, and its triumph is 
more than acquiescence. The popularity of much acquies- 
cence in things as they are is not because it is holier but 
because it is easier." 

What Is Intercession? 
I. intercession is the world^s most powerful practical^ 

HUMAN working FORCE 

Service, the giving of money, the going out of missionaries 
represent the going forth of the life of the Church. Inter- 
cession is no less a putting forth of its vital energy. 

Let it be frankly admitted that there are mysteries in 
prayer that have not yet been satisf actorilly explained ; but 
while this is granted, it cannot be denied that prayer is a 
great living reality among the working forces of the achiev- 
ing Christian leadership of all time. It is inconceivable that 
God should ask his children to cry day and night, to con- 
tinue steadfastly in prayer, to pray without ceasing, if there 
is no reality in prayer and if it is not a great law of God's 
working for the redemption of the world. The Bible often 
asserts and everywhere assumes that prayer has power to 
change things, that something really happens when men 
pray aright. In Christ's teaching prayer is never vague 
aspiration, but involves the putting forth of vital energy 
divinely intended to secure definite and unmistakable results. 
Prayer is not passive, it is active. It is the kinetic energy 
of the soul applied to the highest tasks in the Kingdom. 

'^Supplication Working^' 

The Epistle of James was written by a very practical man, 
and of all the practical suggestions he makes none is more 
compelling that that found in chapter five, verse six: "The 
supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its work- 
ing." Here is an expression full of the energy so alluring 
to modern men of action. His thought seems to be that 

83 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



prayer puts forces at the disposal of God to be applied by 
Him to definite tasks. Prayer does not change the will of 
God, but it enables God to change the wills of men. Prayer 
does not persuade God, but it gives God a power to bring 
to bear on men to persuade them. Power belongeth unto 
God. Prayer is the miracle of potentiality. All prayer is 
directed to Him, and the putting forth of vital energy, which 
is a central fact in intercession, releases forces which God 
can and does use to accomplish definite and practical ends. 

Applying this thought to revivals, Nolan R. Best says: 
'^Men planning for revivals ask money and organization to 
bring their plans to pass. God asks only prayers. He can 
have a revival anywhere if He may have but enough prayers 
of the right kind to work with." 

If prayer is a veritable dynamo of power, why is so little 
accomplished ? Is not the answer the fiery word of the same 
James, "Ye have not because ye ask not" (James 4. 2), 
or because selfishness makes the answer impossible? "Ye 
ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may con- 
sume it on your own pleasures" (James 4. 3). 

^^Striving in Prayer^' 

In a few swift strokes Paul gives us a portrait of Epa- 
phras, one of his most powerful fellow-workers (Col. 1. 7; 
4. 12, 13). The distinguishing work of Epaphras was his 
"striving in his prayers." "He hath much labor." What 
was the object which led him to undertake the exhausting 
labor of intercession? The answer is that the Colossians 
might "stand perfect and complete in all the will of God." 
What conflicts such a result presupposes ! What Christlike 
love and no less Christlike warfare ! What patient teaching, 
what stern reproof, what changed housing conditions in a 
heathen city, what revolutionized habits, what breaking loose 
from old relationships, what readjustment of life's plans! 
Yet here is a man who believes that intercession has power 
to influence and change all these things. He proves his faith 

84 



PKAYER INDISPENSABLE TO WORLD WINNERS 



by spending his time and strength in prayer. Happy the 
church or city that has a modern Epaphras to set free by 
intercession for the redemption of men the powers of the 
heavenly world. 

II. INTERCESSION IS THE DECISIVE HUMAN FACTOR IN THE 
SPIRITUAL CONFLICT 

That we are in the midst of an intense spiritual conflict 
needs no proof. That in the midst of the conflict for the 
control of the planet God still has to wonder that there 
is no intercessor is evidence of much lack of prayer on the 
part of the Church. 

^'Salvation through Your Supplication^' 

In his struggle for the spiritual mastery of Rome and for 
victory in his imprisonment, Paul points out the two decisive 
factors (Phil. 1. 19). The decisive divine factor is "the 
supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ." The decisive human 
factor is "your supplication." It is inconceivable that Paul 
should depend so confidently on the prayers of believers 
did he not know that intercession has power. 

How Two Battles Were Won 

A fierce battle was at its crisis (Exod. 17. 8-16) . The odds 
were very great. Far-reaching issues hung on the way the 
battle went. Intercession was the pivot on which victory 
turned. Joshua was in the thick of the battle on the plain ; 
Moses and Aaron and Hur, the intercessors, were in the 
thick of the battle on the hill alone with God. While inter- 
cession continued victory was assured. When it ceased the 
tide turned to defeat. Given a Joshua to lead the battle, 
and a Moses and his helpers in intercession, no Amalek can 
prevail. If in our day the Church could realize the signifi- 
cance of that scene on the hill as the decisive factor in the 
conflict on the plain, the shout of victory would reverberate 
everywhere along the battle line. The battle goes against 

85 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



the Church when intercession fails. "Write this for a me- 
morial in a book'^ (Exod. 17. 14), that intercession is the 
decisive human factor in the struggle for righteousness and 
redemption. 

There is another intercession scene in the life of Moses 
( Exod. 32. ) , even more moving than the one just mentioned. 
This was a battle, not with a foreign foe like Amalek, but 
with sin in the lives of his brethren. Here is where the 
heart strain is hardest — dealing with sin in those we love. 
While Moses was on the mount receiving the law from God, 
Israel turned to idolatry. The very life of the nation was 
at stake. Stern measures were necessary, and again Moses 
turns to intercession and pleads with God for forgiveness 
for Israel. "If thou wilt forgive their sin" (verses 31, 32). 
This seems so impossible without a supreme sacrifice that 
Moses breaks off suddenly and adds the very highest note 
of intercession — "If not, blot me I pray Thee out of Thy book 
which Thou hast written." Here is what Nolan K. Best 
phrases "fiery revolt and terrific outcry." Prayers that are 
nebulous and nerveless get no answer, but intercession that 
draws vitality from the soul works miracles in the spiritual 
world. The thirty-third chapter of Exodus records the con- 
tinuance of the intercession. "God's tenderness with Moses 
there mentioned is eloquent testimony to the wonders 
wrought with God's approval of Moses's prayers." 

^^By Nothing Save l^y Prayer" 

Look at the desperate case of the epileptic boy (Mark 9. 
14-29, R. v.). The disciples were defeated. They sought 
explanations. "How is it that we could not cast it out?" 
The answer is most startling. Let us not try to obscure the 
plain meaning of Jesus by some mystical interpretation 
which has no practical relation to life. Hear Christ speak 
the word which explains much of the lack of power in the 
modern Church. "This kind can come out by nothing save 
by prayer." Intercession was the decisive human factor in 

86 



PRAYER INDISPENSABLE TO WORLD WINNERS 



the conflict. If the faith of the churches in our day were 
only vigorous enough to take in this word of the living 
Christ, what devils might be cast out of modern society! 
Christ here asserts the fact that there is only one human 
ministry of the Church which releases enough spiritual 
energy to meet the great practical issues of the Kingdom 
victoriously, and that ministry is intercession. If prayer 
has no virtue except its helpful reactions on the life of him 
who prays, if it changes nothing, Jesus' words throw us 
back into hopeless unbelief. Such intercession as is here 
mentioned by our Lord is not simply a repetition of pious 
words. It is not intercession at all if it does not send the 
intercessor out with heart hot with indignation and with 
inflexible purpose to fight evil to the end. 

Christ constantly prayed (Mark 1. 35; Luke 5. 16; Luke 
6. 12; Matt. 14. 23; Luke 9. 18, 28, 29). The burden of His 
prayer is for others, as is so powerfully revealed in John 
17, where Christ prayed for the oncoming centuries and for 
the world-conquering Church. That chapter is the cathedral 
of the New Testament. Christ considered prayer more 
important than public speech, as is shown by the fact that 
his profoundest concern for his preachers was that they 
be men of prayer. His lessons were not at all on how to 
preach, but often on how to pray (Matt. 6. 5-15; 18. 19, 20; 
Luke 9. 1-13; 18. 1-18). Teaching and healing were less 
urgent than prayer with our Lord, for when the multitudes 
were pressing Him for healing and teaching. He withdrew 
to pray (Luke 5. 15, 16). Sleep and rest are gifts of God, 
but not so necessary as intercession, for they were both 
sacrificed when urgent needs arose (Mark 1. 35; Luke 6. 12). 
When some other method might have saved Peter, Jesus said 
simply, "I have prayed for thee" (Luke 12. 32). Christ 
states only one method of securing workers, and that method 
is intercession (Matt. 9. 38). 

Jesus teaches that it is on prayer that some of the promises 
wait their fulfillment. If this is not true, why does Jesus say, 

87 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



^^AsJc, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, 
and it shall be opened unto you"? (Luke 11. 9, 10.) Inter- 
cession is not simply a placid asking or even an earnest 
seeking, but sometimes must be rising up in one's might 
to smite the closed door. God has promised the Holy Spirit 
to all (Acts 2. 39), but in connection with the passage in 
Luke just mentioned Jesus illustrates the necessity of ask- 
ing, seeking, knocking, by saying, "How much more shall 
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
Eimr' (Luke 11. 13.) It is not only true that the fulfill- 
ment of promises waits on prayer, but also upon prayer the 
Holy Spirit waits to cooperate with men. Pentecost and all 
the repetitions of the experience in Acts are preceded and 
accompanied by prayer. This means that the Kingdom 
delays its coming where there is lack of prayer. What a 
sense of responsibility and compulsion this should bring 
every Christian ! What unnecessary poverty and misery and 
wreckage are in the world which praying men might have 
prevented or removed ! 

But the fact which lays hold of one most powerfully, until 
the very wonder of it becomes well-nigh overwhelming, is 
the fact which is now about to be stated. The crowning 
evidence of the place of intercession in the life and plans 
of Jesus is the fact that the Bible is silent about all the 
wonderful and holy activities of our Lord since the ascension 
except one. It is inconceivable that Jesus has suspended 
action in behalf of His Church and His world. What has he 
been doing through these centuries ? The absorbing activity 
of Jesus has been the highest, hardest, costliest ministry. 
^'Ee ever liveth to make intercession'' (Heb. 7. 25; Eom. 
8. 34). A prayer two thousand years long! It is as though 
God desired that no one should be confused by the mention 
in the New Testament of a large number of activities of the 
ascended and living Lord. He reveals only this single, 
highest ministry of the Eedeemer in heaven. What does this 
intercession do for the Church and the world? The arrest- 

88 



PRAYER INDISPENSABLE TO WORLD WINNERS 



ing, startling answer is, '^Wherefore he is able to save to the 
uttermost.'^ The place which Jesus gives to intercession 
seems to be this. When He was here on earth redemption 
was finished in intent by his death and resurrection, but 
that redemption cannot be perfectly applied and made com- 
pletely effective without intercession. It is because inter- 
cession is made — His and ours — that "He is able to save to 
the uttermost." 

III. INTERCESSION IS THE GOLDEN CORD THAT DRAWS MEN INTO 
INTIMATE COMRADESHIP WITH CHRIST 

In a recent pamphlet entitled Intercession, by Henry W. 
Frost, Home Director for America of the China Inland Mis- 
sions, he says there are three stages through which the inter- 
cessor must pass. 

First, there is the stage of amplification. Real interces- 
sion does not stop until it has taken in a world. No more 
vision-bringing, horizon-expanding practice than this is pos- 
sible to a Christian. 

The second stage is specification. Intercession not only 
leads one farther afield; it also inevitably compels more 
attention to details, to individuals, to specific groups, and 
to special needs all over the world. To quote again from 
the pamphlet mentioned above: "Let me frankly say that 
you will do well to think twice before you set your face 
toward this sort of intercession. For this kind of praying 
will take time. It will mean the giving up of prized pleas- 
ures and privileges, earlier rising, and often loss of sleep 
at night. It will mean pressing the battle to the gates, until 
you are laying hold of Satan's stronghold and wrestling with 
powers in heavenly places. Such praying becomes prolonged 
and is necessarily intense." 

Finally, there is the stage of identification. "Intercession 
amplifies and specifies, but before it is finished it puts the 
life so closely in contact with God on the one hand and man 
on the other hand that oneness is obtained and maintained. 

89 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



. . . This experience costs more than any other. ... I 
would urge you for the sake of the Church, for the sake of 
the world, and, above all, for the sake of Christ to become 
an intercessor. Nevertheless, remember that doing this 
will mean, not only that you will have to rejoice with those 
who rejoice, but also to sorrow with those who sorrow. For 
identification implies that you will have to suffer with God 
in His compassion for a back-slidden Church and an unsaved 
world, and that you will have to lay down your life as a 
sacrifice in behalf of all the sons of men. All this will mean 
much pain that will be nothing less than soul-travail." 

Here, then, sounds out the highest, hardest, costliest call. 
Having faced the issue squarely, will you turn away uncon- 
vinced or unwilling to follow the clear call of God ? Defeat, 
disaster, a wreck, lie that way ! Or will you now make this 
last and highest covenant to join with Jesus Christ in 
unfailing intercession, that Satan's dominion may be ended 
and Christ made victor over all the world? Eternal issues 
hang in the balance as you decide. 



A Christian Man and His Training for Life Service 

Dr. Thomas Nicholson_, Secretary of the Board op 
Education 

If a Christian man is to meet his responsibilities in the 
world there are certain elements that must go into his train- 
ing, for Christianity has certain very definite conceptions of 
life, of service^ and of the whole scheme of things into which 
we are cast. 

Christianity views this universe as bound by more than 
golden chains about the feet of God. Christianity recognizes 
that this is a universe of spirit controlled by a great spiritual 
force for great ends. 

Christianity teaches that the Father God so loved the 

90 



A CHRISTIAN MAN AND HIS TRAINING 



world that He was made flesh and came and dwelt among 
us, that we might see with the eye and hear with the ear 
and have in terms of human life and of human experience 
an illustration of how God looked at life, and of what God 
counted worth while in human life, and of what God thought 
of the destiny of the human individual. Need I recount 
all of the great principles He taught us here? A word on 
that is sufficient. 

In the first place, it seems to me God has taught us with 
tremendous force and power that we are laborers together 
with Him, partners in the Kingdom. I can write the history 
of Methodism so as to make it appear that the history of 
Methodism was the genius of John Wesley ; but John Wesley 
himself, if he were writing it, would show that everything 
depended on God. The simple fact is that we are so inter- 
twined and interwoven with the plan and purpose of God 
that if we are to meet the exigencies of this hour and the 
responsibilities of the coming day, we must train and pre- 
pare and labor as if everything depended on us, and trust as 
if everything depended on God. 

If you are going to do that, what must this Christian 
man know ? He must know his Bible. He must know Christ. 
He must know the truth about that Christ. He must know 
the bearing of the teaching of Christ on the social problems 
of the day. He must know the teaching of that Christ bear- 
ing on the citizenship of the commonwealth, and on culture 
and on art. 

Can you get that done if you leave the Bible out of your 
education? Can you get that done if you leave the great 
missionary world-movement out of your education? Can 
you get that done by a purely secular culture? 

My heart is turned toward every man who is teaching life 
with that upward tendency that we call education. My 
heart is turned toward your great State universities. You 
have put a great, strong Christian man, a minister of a 
great Christian denomination, at the head of Ohio State 

91 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



University. My heart is toward every effort to put religion 
— just so far as is consistent with the separation of church 
and state, in which I perfectly believe — into our public 
schools, high schools, and State institutions. 

But all these institutions at their best have limitations. 
They cannot teach the Bible as the Christian school can 
teach the Bible. They cannot teach the fundamentals of 
religion. They cannot put in courses of Christian teaching 
and courses on the world's problems. But you can put them 
in your Ohio Wesleyan or Northern or Mount Union-Scio 
or Baldwin- Wallace. 

This is a time when we need to see the problems of the 
world through prayer^ through the spirit of institutions 
shot through and through with the spirit of prayer. 

Bishop McConnell came back from Mexico, and I said, 
"How are you impressed with our work in Mexico?" He 
said, "The biggest things Methodism has in Mexico are the 
schools ; the future of our work hinges on these schools." 

I looked into the face of Homer Stuntz, and I said, "What 
is the word from South America?" "O Nicholson," he said, 
"you know how many years we have been there, and we 
have not built one first-class college in South America. The 
first business in South America is to get a training school 
for our people." 

I went over the State of Iowa, where I worked for nine 
years, and I found that great State had one boy in college 
for every five hundred and ninety population. Then I found 
we had one hundred and sixty thousand Methodists there. 
I discovered we had one Methodist boy in some college in 
Iowa for every one hundred and forty-six of the one hundred 
and sixty thousand Methodists — four times our proportion. 
I found we had four hundred and twenty-six young people in 
our own colleges, and three hundred and twenty-nine in the 
four State institutions. 

In Indiana we found about one half of the population 
which was non-Christian was furnishing just seventeen per 

92 



A CHRISTIAN MAN AND HIS TRAINING 



cent of the students for their great State university, while 
our own schools were furnishing thirty-three per cent of all 
the students in the State institution. 

The population of California is two million three hundred 
and nineteen thousand; six hundred and eleven thousand, 
only about twenty-five per cent of them, are Christians. Of 
these three hundred and fifty-four thousand are Roman 
Catholics — only two hundred and thirty-six thousand Prot- 
estant. I found those Christians were almost two to one 
in southern California. There is a great institution at 
Berkeley, just across the bay from San Francisco, the State 
of California putting |4,000,000 into it. San Francisco 
County furnishes five hundred and nineteen young people 
to the institutions of the State of California, with the great 
State university at its very doors, while the city and county 
of Los Angeles furnish seven hundred and eighty-six. This 
is in proportion to the ratio of Christians. 

Just as the religious inspiration was the founding of 
higher education and training and culture in the early days 
of this republic, so the Christian inspiration now is the 
greatest inspiration of religion known to men. 

We must train our leaders where they will get all the 
things that belong to Christian education. They must have 
a training shot through and through with the purpose of 
God, the Book of God, and the program of Jesus Christ for 
this world ; and then we shall see the reign of God on earth 
and the remotest bounds of earth will become the kingdom 
of our Lord J esus Christ. 



93 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Supporting the Leader 
W. H. Miller 

The Church is undertaking a great program. If she will 
realize upon this program, she must fortify and strengthen 
her ministry. Behind the church itself, behind the temper- 
ance cause, behind social service, behind missionaries, stands 
the preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If he weakens 
or falls, the cause weakens or the cause falls. Bishop 
McDowell says that the Church which educates her ministry 
and then discards or casts them off in their old age will 
soon be without a ministry, and the Church will be gone. 

The young man standing at the door of the ministry asks 
this question : "If I give my life with a considerable amount 
of money and time for preaching, if I put these most sacred 
interests of mine into the hands of the Church, will the 
Church stand by me and see me through?'' This is the 
proposition that the Church is facing to-day. The young 
men must have the guarantee that if they make the offering 
of themselves they can depend upon the Church to stand 
by them. The greatest offering any man can make is that 
of his own life and the interests of his family. Putting these 
into the hands of another is exactly what a Methodist 
preacher does. He puts his own life and the interests of 
his family into the hands of another, to go where another 
shall say, to work where another shall say, and to live where 
another shall say. No offering is greater than this ; and for 
the Church to receive the offering of this man and then 
not stand by him and see him through, is treachery. It is 
a failure and a business that Almighty God is not in partner- 
ship with. 

The Methodist Church believes in standing behind her 
preachers not only in an active service, but all the way 
through unto the end. Our last General Conference author- 
ized the Board of Conference Claimants to raise |5,000,000 

94 



A CHRISTIAN MAN AND HIS MONEY 



as an investment for their Conference claimants. This is 
being apportioned and assumed by the various Annual 
Conferences until to-day it is not only a five-million-dollar 
campaign, it is a ten-million-dollar or twelve-million-dollar 
campaign; and the Ohio portion of this is one million 
dollars or more. I believe that we will stand behind this 
great movement, and when the campaign is over, which has 
the right of way in 1915, we will realize on the great program 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 



A Christian Man and His Money 

A. E. Cory, Secretary of Missions Board_, Disciples op 

Christ 

I APPRECIATE the delicacy of my position in bringing to you 
the story of the seeming achievements of another denom- 
ination. The story is of God's movement, for whatever has 
been done has not been done because of us, but rather in 
spite of at least some of us. 

It was about four years ago when one of our missionaries 
in China went down to the very door of death with typhoid 
fever. I have never been able to decide whether God made 
that man sick or not. At any rate, God used that man's ill- 
ness in China. 

He was fighting his way back through a long convalescence, 
turning over in his mind again and again the burden of 
China and the need of our missions there. When I went 
in to see him I remember my heart was filled with sympathy. 
He looked up at me and said he wanted to say something to 
me. In the next few minutes he told me in prophecy what 
we have seen recorded in that great republic. 

He said : "You know our missionaries have been spending 
about 110,000 these last few years; well, in the next five 
years, we will have to spend |250,000 on missions." When 

95 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



that sentence fell on my ears I thought the typhoid fever had 
gone to his head. 1 tried to quiet him, and he said, "You 
think that something is the matter with me ; there is nothing 
the matter with me, the trouble is with you." As I went out 
of the room I met Mrs. Cory at the door. She was visiting 
in the same house at the time. Noticing that I was greatly 
disturbed, she said, "What is the matter?" I said: "The 
matter is, the fever has gone to that man's head, and what 
do you think he is talking about? He said we must raise 
one fourth of |1,000,000 in the next five years for the people 
in China." She said, "I don't see anything wrong with that." 
I looked down at her and said, "Well, what is the matter 
with you?" 

The man there on his sick-bed in that room took that 
matter up with our missionaries in China; and talked to 
everybody whom he could reach, and converted everybody 
but me. I went down from that room feeling very doubtful, 
and saying "Let us go slow; let us count the cost, and con- 
sider everything that enters into it." I have found out 
that when the devil can't get a man any other way he makes 
him conservative on a great movement, and causes him to 
be always saying, "Let us be careful, let us do nothing rash." 

I wrote a letter home to a friend of mine, and that friend 
sent a letter to a friend of his. One morning I was standing 
on the steps of my house when a Chinese postman came along 
and handed me a letter bearing the postmark of Beatrice, 
Nebraska. Opening it, I saw it bore the signature of the 
name "Eeider." I had never heard of that name. I opened 
the letter, and found a letter from my friend inclosing this 
letter. This is what it said, "Mr. Cory, I have decided to 
give you |6,000 for the building of a Bible college." My 
friend who had been ill was convalescing at that time. You 
cannot know the joy in my heart as I read those words. I 
just jerked open the door and went up those steps four at 
a time. Now, if any of you are skeptical about that state- 
ment, you put |6,000 at the head of some steps. 

96 



A CHRISTIAN MAN AND HIS MONEY 



I showed the letter to my brother. He looked up at me 
with tears in his eyes. "Ed, Jesus has done this — it is 
of God." For days we went down on our knees in prayer, 
and whatever else I shall recount as having happened after 
that has been absolutely because of prayer. We felt daily 
as we prayed that God led us. We had no plan, we had no 
way. Time went on, and one of our secretaries came around 
the world, and we told him of our hope. He laughed to 
scorn our ideas. A few days later God laid hold of that 
man who had scorned us, and he came to us saying: "It is 
a great thing. It is of God. Let us go out and do it." 

We decided to raise a half million dollars. Out there in 
China that seemed a big sum of money. I was asked to come 
home and lead in the enterprise and raise that amount. 
Some of the missionaries said to make it more than a half 
million — make it a million. I came home and some of 
our business men urged me to increase the amount to a 
million dollars. Finally I sent out a number of letters to 
business men and preachers testing the sentiment in regard 
to the matter. Every one of those preachers to whom I 
wrote answered me saying, "Keep it to a half million"; 
and every one of our business men said, "Make it a million." 

Within the last few years God has touched the hearts 
of men, even to the heart of the stingiest man I ever saw 
and he has coughed up. Back of all this has been the mighty 
power of prayer. We had no method. The only thing we 
talked of was the world's needs, the world's task for God. 
There are no bigger things in the world, friends, than are 
being done in China and Japan. When you go to men 
trying to work them for your own selfish interests, you 
can get nothing from them; but when you go to them and 
tell them it is God's job, and it is their duty in the world 
to and for God, you get something from them. 

We have now secured nearly the million dollars. 

W. H. Hope, of Redlands, California, who said if the 
Colorado River can be turned across the desert, it can be 

97 



THE CHALLENGE OP TO-DAY 



made to blossom like a rose, said, "I will be one of a 
hundred men to give another million." By this pledge 
another million-dollar campaign was organized. That car- 
ried with it a thousand workers to be put into the field for 
God. And we came to our convention a little more than a 
year ago still with our heart and mind full of this great 
project. 

A great missionary, who also was a quiet conservative 
man, came to me late at night and said to me, "If a thousand 
workers are to be put in the field they must be trained, and 
there is only one place to train them and that must be in 
the missionary colleges. They must be trained in the schools 
of the Church." Knowing and feeling the necessity of this 
day for thorough and practically trained men in any of the 
successful enterprises which are undertaken, this suggestion 
of this man stayed with me. If you are going to call out 
workers for this great service of the Church, they must be 
trained in only one place, and that is in the Christian 
colleges. We talked far into the night. Mr. Long urged 
that we increase the amount. He said, "I can give one 
hundred and fifty thousand." 

I went to my room not to sleep but to pray. Time and 
time again the Lord put it in my heart to go and ask Mr. 
Long for a million. But I was afraid. I got up the next 
morning, and after a great prayer meeting at which Mr. 
Long led, went out on the street, then to my hotel. God 
impelled me to go back and talk to Mr. Long. As he was 
coming out he reached out his hand, and said, "Young man, 
what is the matter with you?" I said, "Some man has 
got to give this gift, and I feel you are the man. I feel you 
are worth it." 

He said, "Wait a moment, let me tell you what I owe. I 
owe $1,000,000." I said, "Mr. Long, if you are able to owe 
11,000,000, you can give a million to God." He said, "That 
is not correct financiering." 

Listen, you business men of to-day ; if there is any excuse 

98 



A CHRISTIAN MAN AND HIS MONEY 



the devil has put into the hearts of man, it is this one. Many 
of you men are blinding your eyes by this same statement. 
I am in debt. You want to pay the banker because you 
are afraid of the sheriff ; you forget your responsibility and 
you shirk this wonderful part of the world's work. It is 
not how much of my money will I give to God, but how 
much of God's money will I keep to myself. 

After many days of serious thought, Mr. Long said to me, 
^^If you will raise |5,000,000, I will give the additional 
million." Think of it! One thousand workers in the field, 
and 13,600,000 raised for God and Christ. 

I want to call your attention to another thing; that the 
answer to this question of your obligation to God, is not 
a question of money altogether. When I at first went into 
this movement we got a Bradstreet Directory, and paid 
|100 for it. We got this in order to find out what a man 
is worth. Now we don't use that, but I first go to that man's 
pastor and ask him if that man has God in his heart? That 
is the question, the whole question of the man's obligation. 
Not how much he will give, but whether he loves the Christ ; 
whether he is willing to suffer and die for Him. 

I believe we are living too well, at too fast a pace. We 
are putting too much money on ourselves, on the kind of 
houses we live in, and the machinery we use. God is going 
to hold us responsible. We must stand out against the 
pace we are going. 

How many are facing this for themselves? The other 
night we had a little banquet, and at the conclusion one 
of the men prayed this way, "God, give me courage to go 
home and face myself." Men, how many of us are facing 
ourselves ? 



99 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



A Christian Man and the Community 

Harry F. Ward, Secretary Methodist Federation for 
Social Service 

What should be the attitude of the Christian man to his 
community? Last fall Kitchener interviewed an American 
war correspondent who had been with the German forces. 
He didn't ask him a question about anything except the 
spirit of the troops and what were the measures taken to 
maintain the spirit of the men in the trenches. Said he, 
"The war will be won in the last resort by those who can 
the longest maintain the fighting spirit of the common 
men." 

Once in a while I sit down with men inside and outside 
the church to discuss that compelling question, Will the 
present organization of Christianity prove adequate for the 
thing that God is going to do in this modern world, namely, 
the Christianization of our community life and of the world- 
wide social order? The answer to that question is to be 
found in the spirit and temper of the common troops of 
the lay forces. 

The attitude of the Christian man to his community must 
be that of the missionary. Your community is your mission- 
ary field. Who excused you from that command "Go preach 
the gospel to every creature"? Have you looked on your 
community as the battlefield in which you have to fight for 
life ; out of which you have to get the support for your family 
and the gifts you can make to the church ; and from which 
you can retire to the shelter of your home and of your 
church life? Have you never seen it as that little vital bit 
of the world which Jesus came to save, which can be saved 
only by the multiplied redemptive power of your lives in all 
the functions and contacts of that community? Have you 
never looked upon that community as these student volun- 
teers have looked upon Asia, Europe, and Africa? Look 

100 



A CHRISTIAN MAN AND THE COMMUNITY 



upon it now and tell me, aren't there things there that are 
just as much a challenge to your Christian endeavor as any- 
thing that these men see on the other side of the world? 

Is your treatment of agriculture Christian? Is your 
manufacturing of commodities in that community and your 
treatment of labor up to the standards of the gospel? Are 
you doing that for the childhood of the community which 
Jesus wants done? Are you building up there the whole full 
program of the abundant life that Jesus came to bring? 

If you see that local community of yours now in that great 
white light in which you have seen the foreign field as the 
place of sacrifice and endeavor, it will never again be the 
same place to you. The place where Moses tended sheep 
was never the same again after God had walked upon it. If 
you do nothing else at this place but get that vision of your 
community you will go back there to be a different man 
than you have ever been before. 

There is a large proportion of people who are outside 
Christian churches. In New England it runs a trifle less 
than twenty-five per cent; in Ohio it runs a trifle less than 
sixty per cent. The first question is this: Do you want 
these people with the same passion that Jesus wants them ? 
I spoke to a group of men this week, and one fellow said, "I 
would like to have some one tell me how to make the folks 
in the church be friendly enough to the folks outside the 
church so that we could get them in." There has to be a 
higher type of Christianity in those churches before you 
can get them in. "Shut her out," said that rich Pharisee, 
"she is only a street- walker." "Let her in," said the Master, 
"there is room enough in the heart of God for all like her." 
You will take a crack at the liquor traffic, and you can't 
make it any too hard to suit me, but will you go home with 
the brother that's drunk? Will you get alongside the thing 
that P. J. McConnell mentioned — take hold of those young 
fellows and put something into them besides the drink 
habit? 

101 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Some of the folks outside the church are ignorant people. 
You are quite willing to send the missionary to them. Are 
you willing to take them into the church ? A foreign mission- 
ary board sent a preacher on a special commission of inquiry 
to some foreign countries. After a while the people of those 
nationalities moved into the neighborhood around that 
church, and he tried to get them in ; but those people who 
had poured out their money said : "If you bring these people 
in, we go out/' and they went out and shut up that church. 
But a Methodist preacher was secured and put in charge, 
and that man has preached to thirteen thousand Italians 
since he has been there. A few months ago he organized a 
church of one hundred Italian men, and he picked that 
one hundred out of five hundred who wanted to be taken in. 
If you want to touch those immigrants with the gospel, you 
have got to give them the brotherly contact in the church 
and in the actual life of the community. This great race 
brotherhood of ours must begin right here in the practical 
life of our local villages and towns. 

Some of those people who are not in the church in some 
of these industrial communities are labor leaders. They 
have some questions to raise. Do you want them to raise 
those questions to you face to face in the church where you 
can have it out man to man in the presence of Jesus ? 

A labor leader in a trade in which all the business is done 
by joint trade agreements told me how he went to a certain 
town to adjust a difficult labor condition and the manager 
of the concern met him and they worked out the trade agree- 
ment with satisfaction to botli sides. "On Sunday,'' he said, 
"I went to church in that town with my wife. I sat in front 
of that man and his wife. At the end of the service, when 
I turned around to introduce him to my wife, he turned his 
back and walked away." 

You can get a preacher who can talk with the tongue of 
angels, and he cannot put religion into the life of a com- 
munity. You can bring a great evangelist and have thou- 

102 



A CHRISTIAN MAN AND THE COMMUNITY 



sands of confessions, but if you don't have the same hunger 
and passion for these folks at the end, you will not have 
welded that community together to do the business of God. 
We should bring all the people together and build them up in 
the community life. You can call it brotherhood, but Jesus 
had another name for it. He said this spirit of love is 
God himself. It is the creative force. It is the redemptive 
force, and it must possess every Christian man in the com- 
munity before that community can be thoroughly redeemed. 

But you say : "Look how we pour out our money. We are 
the good fellows of the earth. Look at Belgium and see 
what we are doing." But stop and look at some of the other 
things. The moment that money goes to Belgium it is a 
force unavailable here in this country. Look at the unem- 
ployed. What shall we do? How shall we do it? Has 
any man here gone without any luxuries this winter in the 
face of this situation? Until we have done that we will 
have something to think about. We have the machinery 
to take care of the situation, but we have not the spirit yet ; 
we have not the attitude of the Christian man toward his 
community. 

There are six hundred children committed by your judges 
to your institutions. You will organize the institutions to 
take care of them, but will you put health back into your 
local community life, so that the sores of the body politic 
will be healed up ? 

Another thing — sex disease. Men are suffering from it 
because the community before them, when they were boys, 
didn't face this thing and prevent it. I ask you if you are 
simply going to sink your heads in the sand and ignore that 
thing or are you going to do your duty in the face of 
Almighty God and of your family ? Do your part to rid the 
race of this destructive plague. 

God forgive us, wherein we have not lived Thy word. Some 
of us could have given more money to have it carried abroad, 
and some of us could have talked more about it, and all of 

103 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



us could have lived it more. Help us to give ourselves as 
Christ gave Himself, in the actual business of our home, 
in the actual business of our farm and factory and store, 
in the government of our community and in the caring for 
its child's life. Help us that we may be servants of men, 
that, with Jesus, we may help to save men. 



104 



PART III 
THE RESPONSE 



By Dr. Herbert Welch 

Dear Lord, we come to Thee not to pray for our- 
selves. O how trifling seem the interests of our life, 
our health, our accomplishments, the triumphs of our 
plans! How little they are, as we look with a vision 
of the world before us — the triumph of God, the victory 
of righteous, omnipotent, all-powering love! As we 
pray for these we pray for the ruler of the nation ; we 
pray for all those to-day who are bound down in body 
and heart ; for those who are living in oppression to-day 
in our own land; we pray for the great company of 
those consecrated Christians within the reservation 
of the services of Jesus Christ. We pray that these 
years before us may be such years as we never have 
seen; years of such spiritual influence that the hearts 
of all men shall be troubled ; years in which our nation 
shall be mightily moved toward the throne of God ; and 
that this convention may lead to such an opening of 
the treasure of love, such personal consecration, as to 
make itself felt in every land under the sun. God save 
the world! Save the world, O God, for which Jesus 
Christ died. 

We ask it in His name who gave himself for us and 
all mankind. Amen. 



Laborers for the Harvest 

At the afternoon session of Thursday Mr. Fennell P. Turner, gen- 
eral secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement, and four Student 
Volunteers, introduced several college students who purpose to go as 
foreign missionaries as soon as they have finished their courses of 
preparation. Each of these Student Volunteers in a brief speech 
told why it was his "purpose, if God permit, to become a foreign 
missionary." They spoke as follows: 

Paul A. Reichel^ of Ohio State University 

I am an engineer. While at college I pursued courses in 
both arts and engineering (architecture), completing the 
arts course in the class of 1914 at the Ohio State University. 
Brought up in a Christian home, a minister's family, I had 
always entertained the desire to use my architectural pro- 
fession in some unselfish way for Christ. However, I never 
fairly faced the proposition of meeting the greatest need 
until a college chum, Joshua H. Vogel, who was a senior 
architect when I was a sophomore, left for Japan to be 
an architect-missionary. This was the first time I had ever 
faced the proposition of foreign missions. Until I met Vogel 
I had never thought of engineers as missionaries. Another 
influence was brought to bear upon me by Ralph B. Colson, 
a traveling secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement. 
Colson was an all-around athlete of Hamilton College, who 
originally dreamed of being an architect and putting up 
fine buildings. He told me of his decision to build men's 
lives instead of edifices. My association with him and 
his splendid volunteer purpose led me finally to declare 
my "purpose, if God permit, to become a foreign mission- 

107 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



ary." Last spring my father died, making it necessary for 
me to give up, temporarily at least, the last year of my archi- 
tectural course. Although this will prevent me from getting 
to the field as soon as I had hoped, I know that, if I am 
willing to pay the price of sticking to the purpose which 
God set up for me on April 16, 1913, He will in His own 
time open the way to the accomplishment of His purpose 
for my life. 

M. Eugene Terry^ of Wooster College 

Ever since I have been old enough to think about a life- 
work for myself, the Christian ministry has been my highest 
ideal. But when I grew older and began to think more 
seriously about it I began to ask myself if I really did want 
to be a minister, and why. For about two years in the first 
part of my high-school course I was undecided, and not a 
little rebellious against my former plans. It was hard for 
me, a boy of fourteen or fifteen, to say that I was going to 
be a preacher when every companion I ever had had aims 
so different. However, the training and influence of my 
godly parents, backed, I am sure, by their prayers, brought 
me through the struggle with a right decision. I gradually 
came to the conclusion that whatever I should choose as 
my lifework must be what God had planned for me. When 
a junior in high school I definitely decided to start my 
preparation for the ministry. The following summer I went 
to an Ohio Christian Endeavor Convention at Canton. For 
three days I heard the missionary cause presented. On the 
last day of the convention I attended a quiet missionary 
conference there. After a few simple, earnest talks and 
prayers the leader asked if anyone would give his life to 
work on the foreign field. I felt then very clearly and 
forcibly that that was the place for me. I am sure that I 
had never before considered becoming a missionary, but 
I was ready for God to point out my path, and when He 
did I accepted without fear or hesitation. I have never 

108 



LABORERS FOR THE HARVEST 



regretted that I made my decision at that time. The feeling 
of eagerness and responsibility has steadily grown, and I 
am going out into God^s great battlefield to fill as big a place 
in the fight as He will give me power to fill. 

Thomas J. Denney_, op Ohio Wesleyan University 

It is a tremendous moment in a young man's life when he 
realizes that he has "only one life to live." Such a moment 
came to me a few years ago when I accepted Jesus Christ 
as my Saviour and Lord. In due time the next question 
came to me: "How shall I spend my life?" The answer to 
this question for me was the call to the foreign mission 
field, and the more I thought of it, the more the foreign mis- 
sion field seemed to me to be the place where God wanted 
me. The people of the non-Christian world are without 
Jesus Christ, and the facts unquestionably show that the 
workers are very few. So far as I was concerned it seemed 
to me to be the place where I could best serve Jesus Christ. 
Paul saw only one man from Macedonia and heard him call, 
"Come over and help." With the information which I had 
I could see, when I lifted up my eyes and looked on the 
fields, millions and millions of people in China, India, 
Arabia, and Africa calling out, "Come over and help us"; 
so I decided to give my life to that service. I am not only 
willing, but I am anxiously waiting for the time to come 
when I may carry the message of Jesus Christ to a part of 
the people who never have had the opportunity to know of 
Him. 

Arthur C. Wickenden^, of Denison University 

Two weeks before the Student Volunteer Convention at 
Kansas City in January, 1914, a friend who was accompany- 
ing me there said, "They tell me that we will be Student 
Volunteers when we return from the Convention." I replied, 
"No, they will never make a Student Volunteer out of me." 
While there I was greatly impressed by the wonderful vision 

109 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



of the present unprecedented world situation from the point 
of view of opportunity, of danger, and of urgency. I felt 
that my life could best be invested in definite Christian 
work, so I came to that decision, but, true to my former 
prejudice, I did not volunteer for foreign missions. I lis- 
tened most attentively whenever those great Christian states- 
men spoke of the great need at home of working up mission 
interest and thus providing an adequate home base, and 
told that the most critical battlefield of the whole situation 
is in the colleges of North America. As these home needs 
were told I thought that therein I found my justification 
for remaining at home. I came away from that Convention 
resolved to do all in my power to share this wonderful vision 
with my college associates and to try to influence some of 
them to think seriously of giving their lives to the mission 
enterprise. But as I attempted to carry out my resolution, 
I was asked many times if I expected to become a foreign 
missionary myself, and it made me feel like a hypocrite. 
I soon discovered that I was trying to influence others to do 
something that I was unwilling to do. I was borne down 
by a serious conviction. I tried hard to face the proposition 
and think it through to a definite conclusion. That was a 
very difficult thing to do. I prayed to God to give me 
strength to face it squarely. He did give me strength. I 
could think of many reasons why I ought to decide to be- 
come a foreign missionary, but no good reason for not being. 
So I decided to be a foreign missionary. And may I add 
that the happiest period in my life has been since I have 
dedicated myself to w^ork as a foreign missionary if God 
permit. 

W. Hoke Kamsaur^ op the University of Alabama 

I decided to give myself to foreign missionary service be- 
cause God had placed upon my heart the settled conviction 
that my life would count most largely for Jesus Christ in 
the non-Christian world. The influence of this decision and 

110 



LABORERS FOR THE HARVEST 



of my life went back immediately to my family. It touched 
the life of my father, a busy doctor, and made him not only 
a Sunday school superintendent but a leader of personal 
workers. It touched the life of my mother, and made her 
not only a faithful church member but an organizer of 
groups for intercession. It touched the lives of my two 
sisters and made them soul-winners. It touched the life of 
my brother and saved him from himself and for God. 

This influence went back to my little home town. It 
touched the lives of the ministers and drew them together 
in a weekly meeting for prayer, consultation, and study. 
It touched the lives of the church members and quickened 
many of them. To-day in a community with less than one 
thousand inhabitants, one hundred meet weekly in small 
groups for definite prayer. The beat of the heart bent upon 
the saving of men and women in distant fields produced a 
like beat in their hearts for the saving of those near at hand, 
and some remarkable conversions are being reported. 

This influence (and I would remind you that my life is 
one of only average abilities — sometimes I think of less than 
the average) in these last two years has entered into the 
theological seminary and college, and has quickened every- 
one. It touches you men here this afternoon. It touches 
every individual whom I touch and learn to know, and leaves 
him more in earnest about the things of God. 

I volunteered five years ago because of the needs and 
opportunities of the foreign fields. I persevere to-day in 
that decision for the same reason, but also because I am 
persuaded that I can serve best the work at home by going 
forth to God's work in the foreign mission field. 

Mr. Turner 

If these young men were your sons, would you be willing 
to have them go as foreign missionaries? If a sufficient 
number of missionaries are sent out to evangelize the non- 
Christian world, parents must be willing to give their sons 

111 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



and daughters for this work. It cannot be done otherwise. 
There are not enough orphans to do the work, and happy the 
parents who willingly give their children for this blessed 
service. 

Let me tell you a story that was told me by an Ohio man : 
While he was a member of the Ohio Legislature he received 
a letter from his wife which was marked ^'X^rgent and im- 
portant." He tore open the envelope with trembling hands, 
fearing that some member of the family was ill. In sub- 
stance it was as follows : 

"Dear Eus'band: Our daughter writes from the col- 
lege that she has decided to go as a foreign missionary. 
Come home at once.'' 

Within an hour he was on the train on his way home. 
It took several hours to make the journey, and during this 
time he thought over the whole question. This girl was the 
oldest child in his family, a talented, beautiful girl, the joy 
and pride of the household, and he was much distressed 
with the thought that his daughter had decided to leave her 
home and go to some far-away non-Christian country to 
work as a missionary, and, in all probability, sacrifice her 
life in the work. But as he thought it over he remembered 
that he and his wife had dedicated their oldest child to the 
Christian ministry. When he got home he said to his wife : 
"We have no reason to be disturbed because our daughter 
has decided to be a missionary." She asked why. "Well," 
said the husband, "don't you remember that before the birth 
of our first-born we consecrated that child to the Lord for 
the Christian ministry ? But our first-born was a girl. Dur- 
ing the years since then we have forgotten all about having 
given this child to the Lord. Now God has answered our 
prayer by calling her to the foreign missionary field. We 
nave no right to complain. All we can do, and let us try 
to do it cheerfully, is to give her to the Lord for any service 
to which He calls her." 

I hold in my hand a letter written by the mother of one 

112 



LABORERS FOR THE HARVEST 



of the young men who spoke to you this afternoon. Let me 
read a few sentences of what this mother has written to 
her son: "I wish I could see you to-night. I have been 
thinking about you all day. It comes over me sometimes in 
a great wave that in a few short years you will be far, far 
away. It is a time of great awakening for the whole world. 
The people everywhere are longing and longing for the old, 
old story. They are dissatisfied and crying out after some- 
thing, and only the religion of Jesus Christ can satisfy their 
need. It will not be easy to see you go, but I am willing 
to have you go wherever you can do the greatest good." 

When your boy writes to you from college that he has 
decided to become a missionary will you reply with a like 
letter? The young men and young women who go out to 
the foreign mission field as missionaries are not the only 
ones that make sacrifices for the kingdom of God. The 
fathers and mothers also must make sacrifices. You must 
let your sons and your daughters go forth into God's service 
if the world is to be brought to Christ. The world will never 
be evangelized if we Christians hold back what is necessary. 
Our lives — your life and my life — must be lives of sacrificial 
obedience. If we pray for the evangelization of the world, 
we must be willing to follow our prayers with all that we 
have, whatever that be: our lives, our money, or our sons 
and our daughters. Are we willing to pay the price that is 
necessary for the evangelization of the world? 



113 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Missionary Values — Messages from the Foreign Field 

W. F. Oldham_, Corresponding Secretary Board of Foreign 
Missions, and Four Missionaries 

I CALL attention to three important matters that the try- 
ing days upon us emphasize. 

First. I would have you joyfully note the splendid firm- 
ness and zeal with which the young native churches in prac- 
tically all our foreign fields are maintaining their religious 
intensity and even adding to their zeal, in spite of the cruel 
and hateful war that rends the world. 

It might well be thought that the seeming collapse of 
Christian brotherhood among nations long known as among 
the leaders of Christendom would utterly depress all Chris- 
tian workers and render futile all missionary effort among 
the on-looking and participating peoples of the non-Chris- 
tian world. But, strangely enough, it is not so. Educated 
antagonists of Christianity may be helped in their railings 
against the Christian faith by the events of our day, but 
the masses of the people seem to distinguish between failing 
Christians and Christ; between un-Christian racial and 
political motives and the real teachings of the gospel. The 
very magnitude and fierceness of the struggle seem to have 
shocked them into a certain awful solemnity, and our mis- 
sionary leaders report from almost everywhere an actual 
quickening of spiritual life and religious intensity. 

From India come reports of wider mass movements than 
ever. Whole villages by the hundreds represented by their 
hereditary mayors are eager for baptism, and for schools 
for their children. The figures rise all the time. Were we 
ready to shepherd them, we could confidently expect to 
begin at once with adding one hundred thousand souls to the 
Church. Your overburdened missionaries from India cry 
to you men of great Ohio for added help. 

114 



MESSAGES FROM THE FOREIGN FIELD 



China for a century has been a rock against which Chris- 
tian evangelism has dashed itself with but small results. 
Now comes a mighty upheaval. The first report of the year 
is from the North China Conference. The advance in mem- 
bership is twenty-seven per cent, and this is only a straw 
marking the rush of a tremendous current. The outstanding 
thing in China is not the number of men becoming Chris- 
tians but the leavening of the thought in the whole educa- 
tion of China with Christian principles, and in many x)laces 
with distinct evangelical teaching. The literati of China, 
the student life of China, is rapidly approaching a mass 
movement toward the Christian Church. 

In Japan a three years' evangelistic campaign is under 
way with greater promise and with more marked intensity 
of zeal on the part of the Japanese workers than was antici- 
pated by the most hopeful friends of the young Christian 
Church in that great land. 

Korea, where the Church has been greatly depressed for 
a few years, comes again to the flaming zeal of the earlier 
day. Once more the thousands who press to the places of 
worship are so many that many of the churches have to be 
used several times a day to accommodate all who would 
worship. Constant revival is returning to Korea. In the 
Philippines, in the Malay Islands, and very notably in South 
America, evangelistic results are large, and the attitude 
of the general public toward the Christian propaganda is 
markedly altering the world over. A great day of the Lord 
is upon us, a day more pregnant with results than any since 
Pentecost. 

Second. It must be kept in mind that our great allies in 
world-evangelization are for the present crippled, and will 
so remain for years to come. The two lands that have stood 
most prominently with America for world-evangelization 
have been Germany and Great Britain. Alas, these are now 
engaged in fratricidal strife, and their missionary activities 
are crippled. There are few spots in the non-Christian 

115 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



world where German missionaries can continue to operate, 
and even in these lands German resources are so wanting 
that the missionaries are partly dependent upon others for 
mere sustenance. The British, too, engrossed in war, can- 
not support their missions as they did. The result is that 
with German missions practically inoperative, and British 
missions crippled, the burden of the evangelization of the 
world falls to-day as never before upon America. The year 
before the war opened Britain contributed |13,000,000 to 
foreign missions. If this year she should contribute one 
half this amount it will be with greater difficulty and larger 
self-sacrificing than she has yet shown. Who is to carry 
the burden of our Lord's work that falls from the weakened 
shoulders of these two great lands? 

Third. All of this means that we have reached a very 
solemn day in the life of this nation. While in Europe they 
are quarreling with bitter strife as to who shall lead Europe, 
the moral hegemony of this planet has passed from Europe 
altogether and rests upon young vigorous America. Any 
true lover of his land, who also has a vision of the world's 
needs cannot but anxiously inquire, "Are we big enough? 
Can we adequately meet this new situation in the moral 
world to which the providence of God has led us?" Here 
is the heart of the nation. I have heard Bishop Thoburn 
playfully say that this is "The United States of Ohio." Am 
I saying too much when I say that Ohio, both by situation 
and by training, comes nearer being the leader of the United 
States than any other of the forty-eight stars which form 
the glorious constellation? Will the men of Ohio joyfully 
and prayerfully assume the enlarged burden which this 
awful war places upon the American people? As we con- 
sider this matter, we will see the reason why the whole 
burden of this convention has been a call to a deepened life 
of prayer, to a quickened zeal, and to a more thoroughgoing 
devotion and self-sacrifice. Without these we will not rise 
to the fullness of the stature tliat the day demands. But, 

116 



MESSAGES FROM THE FOREIGN FIELD 



please God, we will learn the lessons put before us, and by 
His grace meet the situation. 

SOUTH AMERICA 

Dr. James M. Taylor 

Dr. Oldham : Dr. James M. Taylor knows all about South 
America. He has been all around that country. 

South America is a great continent of thirteen countries. 
One of these countries is much larger than the United States. 
Every one of the thirteen countries of South America mines 
gold. Several of them mine silver. Bolivia is called the pot 
of gold on legs of silver because of its mines of precious 
metals. The fertility of the soil of South America surpasses 
the imagination. The soil, taken with the climate of South 
America, makes it possible to produce anything that grows 
on earth. 

The republic of Argentina is rapidly becoming the meat- 
shop of the whole earth. Sixty million head of cattle were 
shipped out before the war. They are pushing their beef 
throughout the world, and you eat it on your table in Colum- 
bus no doubt this very day. The fruit of South America 
surpasses the finest fruit in this country. Their peach 
orchards are not to be excelled. It is not wonderful that a 
country with such great natural wealth should have such 
a great future. It is for us to say whether the to-morrow 
of this great continent and the nearby islands of Trinidad 
is to be atheistic or Christian. It is not now, and never will 
be, Roman Catholic. 

You get into the interior of South America and you can 
travel miles and miles and never find a man who can tell 
you who God is, if you ask him. You will find the male 
population, those who have learned to read and write, almost 

117 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



as a whole, giving no attention to Christianity, and declaring 
to you, ^We don't believe in Christianity, we are agnostics," 
or "We are unbelievers.'' 

The "other side of the house" is the hardest proposition 
in South America. They say we are trying to wreck their 
homes and blacken the characters of their daughters for 
the sake of religion. In our Santiago College for women I 
have seen dozens of these refined, educated women kneeling 
at the altar of prayer, and instead of mothers persecuting 
them and taking them away from the school, they have 
written back saying, "Daughter, pray for me that I may 
know your Christ and may have the same experiences you 
have found." 

On one of his visits a missionary asked me to go with him, 
to see the only family he knew in the city who were unbeliev- 
ers. The family consisted of three sisters, two of them 
mothers, but not married. When I went in I found myself 
in an open saloon. I never saw anything like it in Christian 
America. When we called for a glass of water they gave 
instead a glass of whisky. Upon their request for something 
to read we left them the Gospel of Luke. Again, one day 
in passing, we gave them the Bible. They told others it was 
a good book. They began selling them. The oldest of the 
three daughters told me of the persecutions they had suffered 
because they had read the Bible. The priest called on them 
and told them they must not read the book. "It is a 
damnable book," he said, and added, "If you don't quit read- 
ing it, I will never forgive you your sins any more." "All 
right," said the girl, "I will go to Jesus Christ and get it 
done; it will be cheaper anyway." 

I had to go to Chickamula to hold a meeting. I covered 
over two hundred miles on mules. The meeting began on 
Sunday. Tuesday morning I noticed a woman with a 
thirteen-year-old girl come in to the services and take a front 
seat. It was the same woman. She had come over the rough 
mountain road, not riding but walking, fording the rivers, 

118 



MESSAGES FEOM THE FOREIGN FIELD 



and sleeping under the trees at night. Why? Because 
her heart was hungry for Jesus Christ. 



INDIA 

Mr. Lewis E. Linzell 

Dr. Oldham : Here is India, to be presented by Mr. Lewis 
E. Linzell, of the Cincinnati Conference, Ohio's earliest man 
in India. 

In one of the remote villages in India I was baptizing a 
baby brought to me by its parents — a poor, sick, hungry- 
looking baby. I took the baby, holding it astride my hips, 
Indian fashion. As I was pouring the water on the baby's 
head I remarked that the child looked sick. The father 
answered, saying "Yes, it has the smallpox." 

Here is a picture of India — sick, hungry; I wish every 
man in Christian Ohio might know how hungry India is. 
I have seen great crowds coming along the dusty highway, 
with their ribs standing out of their body, and their cheeks 
sunken in — the hungriest-looking people you have ever seen, 
and the hungriest people spiritually as well as physically. 
One cannot realize their condition without seeing them. 

While on the streets of Bombay one day I saw a man stand- 
ing on the corner holding his hand over his head. He was 
doing it to make himself a little better in the sight of the 
infinite God. I saw a man held down by heavy iron chains, so 
heavy that when he traveled on the railways he was always 
shipped by weight. 

Day after day have I seen men with nothing but a scanty 
cloth around their loins lying on a bed of spikes, with ten- 
penny nails piercing their flesh, lying there because they 
thought they would make themselves a little better. 

I saw a man standing out in the burning sun, and around 

119 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



him were built five fires, roasting hiniself because he thought 
by so doing he could make himself a little better. 

I saw a man standing under a tree counting his heart 
beats, not to know how many times his heart did beat, but 
because by so doing he thought God would reward him. 

Some of you ask, "How do such men get their living?" 
Any man will feed "a holy man" in India. Any man will 
give a slice of bread or a handful of rice to the "holy man" 
over there. 

When we were holding our District Conference of one 
hundred and thirty churches, hearing the reports of the 
preachers, we were aroused by the sound of music coming 
through the windows. Looking out, we saw that the sound 
was from native drums, and coming along the dusty highway 
w^as a great company. We noticed they had their bows and 
arrows. They stopped in front of the church. They had 
come a distance of thirty miles to enroll themselves. There 
were seven hundred and fifty of them by actual count, asking 
me if I would be good enough to teach them. I appointed 
three men to go up where they lived, and now in that tribe, 
known as one of the chief tribes in India, there is a great 
faith among them and a turning to Jesus Christ. 

The heart of India is hungry for the living God. A Meth- 
odist missionary was preaching on the streets of Bombay, 
surrounded by a crowd eager to listen, when three men 
standing on the outskirts came up and asked whether they 
could not be made to see the light. The missionary said, 
"Certainly, no matter what you are, you may receive Jesus 
Christ and drink of the water of life freely." Those three 
men went back home and told their friends and neighbors 
of this wonderful salvation they had received. They re- 
quested of Bishop Thoburn that he send them a messenger 
to teach their people the way. As a result of the efforts 
of these three men who found the light a thousand people 
were baptized. 

I say the heart of India is hungry for the living God. 

120 



MESSAGES FROM THE FOREIGN FIELD 



CHINA 
H. F. RowE 

Dr. Oldham: There is Bashford; there is China. I have 
named the most tremendous proposition the earth holds. 

China by some power difficult of analysis has so far over- 
come the forces which make for disintegration and moral 
decay that she continues to live, and can look back over the 
path she has traveled seeing there the strewn wreckage of 
Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. 

It was my friend Simester, who gave eight years of his 
life to China, who said that he sometimes heard a man in 
one part of his audience say, "Is it not true that China has 
been asleep for two thousand years ?" Then he heard another 
man say, "Is it not true that China is two hundred years 
behind the times?" And he remarked that any nation that 
could go asleep for two thousand years and then waken up 
only two hundred years behind the rest of the world must 
be worth saving. China is not only alive to-day, but is a 
great, strong, virile race. 

The opportunity of the Church in China may be bulked 
under two heads. First, there is the educational oppor- 
tunity. The new system of education which China began 
to inaugurate only a few years ago was almost utterly dis- 
organized by the Republican revolution. All the foreign 
teachers had to be discharged. There was not sufficient 
money to support the educational program. The result is 
that to-day about eighty per cent of the students who want 
an education above the high school must come to our mis- 
sionary institutions. That means that we are to-day edu- 
cating the men who in five or ten years will be called upon 
to reorganize and gi\e direction to the governmental system 
of education. If we can Christianize those men, it will mean 
that we shall make it possible that a Christian direction 

121 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



shall be given to the system of education for four hundred 
million people. The Chinese government is outlining an 
educational program which plans to provide within thirty 
years facilities which will give education to every child in 
China. The Church to-day faces an opportunity in its edu- 
cational work which comes to the Church only once in a 
thousand years. 

The second opportunity is the task of preaching the gospel 
to four hundred million people who are ready to hear it. 
Allow me to explain that by one or two statements. First, 
at every church or chapel anywhere in China, every night 
of the week without any advertising, all that is necessary 
to get an audience — ^half a church full, three fourths of a 
church full — is that we shall light the lights and begin to 
sing. Those audiences will fi.ll the churches and listen for 
an hour or an hour and a half while we preach to them 
about Jesus Christ. Often at the end of that time they are 
not ready to go, and ask us to continue speaking. The second 
illustration of their readiness to hear is to be found in the 
great Eddy meetings, of which you have heard and concern- 
ing which you will hear further in this convention. 

That whole race is ready to hear the gospel. The sad side 
to this is that, with these marvelous opportunities facing 
us, with this whole Chinese nation open to the gospel, the 
Methodist Episcopal Church this year is not sending a single 
penny more to China than she sent last year. Our missions 
in China are facing the "embarrassments of success." If all 
of these eighteen thousand Chinese who signed cards in Mr. 
Eddy's meetings were to become Christian next year, it 
would mean a decided embarrassment to the Christian 
Church, because we do not have sufficient ministers with the 
educational qualifications to minister to that class of people. 
If one out of every hundred in China who is interested in 
the gospel to-day should join the Church this year we would 
not have enough churches to house them, and not enough 
preachers to minister to them. Get this need on your heart 

122 



MESSAGES FROM THE FOREIGN FIELD 



and so realize the responsibility that you will send up to 
God a great volume of prayer, and give of your means as 
God has prospered you, that we may enter the open doors 
and make China Christian. 

INDIA 

J. Waskom Pickett 

Dr. Oldham : We will hear from another part of India. 

Protestantism went to India a little more than a hundred 
years ago. We placed a missionary here and a missionary 
there and a missionary somewhere else, but we made no 
serious attempt to preach Christ to India's masses until 
within recent times. Although we have been hindered by 
the previous record of the Roman Church and by political 
considerations, yet we have had a remarkable response from 
the people. The Christian community in India now numbers 
roughly four millions. It is larger than that of any other 
mission field. 

In the last quarter of a century our Methodist Church 
has grown from nine thousand to nearly three hundred thou- 
sand members. Last year more than thirty-seven thousand 
converts were baptized by Methodist missionaries and their 
Indian associates. Twenty-six years ago Dr. Rockwell 
Clancy crossed the Ganges River and baptized our first 
Methodist convert in Northwestern India. To-day we have 
in that territory the Northwest India Conference with a 
Christian community of one hundred and fifteen thousand 
or more, although we have turned about eighteen thousand 
of our baptized converts there over to other missions. These 
people, kept waiting through the centuries, are beginning to 
come into their own. Robbed of their God-given right to 
hear the preaching of God's word, by the apathy and indiffer- 
ence of the Church, they have waited for the Church to 
awake and get busy. 

123 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



We congratulate ourselves on the fact that the greatest 
missionary organization in the world to-day is the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and yet we are reminded that we are by 
no means meeting our opportunity in India. It is glorious 
that thirty-seven thousand people were baptized by our 
ministers last year, but it is tragic that several times that 
number who wanted to become Christians were denied bap- 
tism and the ministry of the Word. What think you men 
of the fact that we turned away one hundred and fifty-two 
thousand inquirers who were ready to renounce heathenism, 
break up their idols, and follow Christ? Can we rest easy 
over what we have done when we face this indictment? It 
takes money to support preachers and teachers; and while 
we kept much of our money or spent it for comforts and 
luxuries, these people were denied the gospel. Many of 
them would have paid a preacher to come to them, but they 
were working on from three to seven cents a day and trying 
to support their families, so they had nothing left for a 
preacher. 

Men who know India intimately say, ^'Give us money to 
train and support preachers and to establish schools and 
churches, and within a decade we will have more Methodists 
in India than there are in America." Bishop Warne says, 
"Double the amount of money you give to India and one of 
our Annual Conferences will win a million souls to Christ 
within ten years." 

Pray for India, give to India, come to India, and we can 
make this most religious people in the world an honor and 
praise to our God. 



124 



THE CHURCH A COMMUNITY FORCE 



The Church a Community Force 

Worth M. Tippy^ Pastor Epworth Memorial Church^ 

Cleveland 

Let me ask you first to consider what is a community? 
A community is a city or a town or a village or the people 
who meet together socially and religiously and educationally 
in a strictly rural place. The community consists of all the 
people instead of a few people. A community consists addi- 
tionally of the buildings of a city or town or village, means 
of transportation, institutions of various kinds, educational, 
religious, charitable, social, artistic, industrial, by which 
the people work for the common welfare and the common 
happiness and their daily bread ; and if you look deeper into 
any one of these institutions, you look into the faces of men 
and women and children. A school is not primarily an insti- 
tution. It is a group of boys and girls, laughing and frolick- 
ing on the playground. It is a teacher standing face to 
face with thirty or forty children of a given grade. A 
hospital is not a pile of brick and mortar and a series of 
rooms. It is a mother with her newborn babe in the nursery. 
It is a bruised workingman brought back to industry and 
to his family. It is a crippled child with limbs being 
straightened or being given back to life. I say this because 
people need to remember that in dealing with a community 
they are dealing with men and women and children, and not 
primarily with institutions. Any man with an imagination 
and heart who is working in an organization in his com- 
munity that exists for the uplift of his people in any particu- 
lar way, sees the light on a human face and he feels the 
ambitions and the hopes and the fears of men, women, and 
children. That is why a community is sacred. That is why 
a community endeavor is so significant. 

Must we not confess that in the generation that is passed, 
and possibly the last two or three generations, we have 

125 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



grievously erred as churches in the extreme of our individual- 
ism? Did not these charts exhibited by Harry F. Ward 
bring home to you, as they brought home to me, how much 
of the time we have been working with eyes closed to great 
things affecting the welfare and the happiness of the people 
we have been trying to minister to? Did not you think as 
I thought, how many people have been destroyed while we 
have been trying to save them and our energies have been 
directed in the wrong way ? The Church that is coming, the 
spirit that is sweeping over the Christian world, is going to 
have a new place for the community in its thought, in its 
affections, in its life. 

Let me give you two great sayings. Probably you know 
them. But if you do not, carry them away with you, please. 
The first is that by Cannon Barnett, of Townsend Hall — I 
heard it twenty years ago : "The service of God is the service 
of man." Then let me give you this one as a watchword 
for the Church and its community, "Every church should 
carry its community in its heart." 

If we can take that saying of John Wesley, "The world 
is my parish," and that saying of Cannon Barnett, "The 
service of God is the service of man," and this last saying, 
"Every church should carry its community in its heart," we 
have three great ideas that are going to build the Church 
and the religion of the future which the world will trust 
and which the world will love. Is it not true that the attitude 
of our churches toward their communities has not only 
been individualistic in the extreme, but also that it has 
been mainly critical? Have we not been like fathers and 
mothers who pick at the faults of their children until the 
children revolt against their fathers and mothers, and it 
almost becomes impossible to teach them concerning their 
evils? Is it not dreadful that so many of our evangelists 
have been willing to come the first time into a community 
and draw crowds by denunciations of mayors and aldermen 
and chiefs of police? I do not think a man has a right to 

126 



THE OHUKCH A COMMUNITY FORCE 



do such things until he has earned that right by a citizen- 
ship — by a long and patient, loving service for that com- 
munity. No man can get it in three or four days or a week. 
So I propose in a formal way that which this survey has 
proposed in a graphical way — a new attitude toward our 
city, our town or village or countryside — an attitude of 
patience and an attitude of father love and mother love, an 
attitude of thoroughgoing service and self-denial and conse- 
cration to its largest interests; in short, that our churches 
carry their communities in their hearts. 

Now, briefly, may I suggest certain great things that are 
to be done, not in detail, but in principle. In making our 
churches community forces: First, will you think with me 
about a church as a force in its neighborhood or its parish, 
as distinguished from its city or its town? In the village, 
in the country, the neighbor and the community are coterm- 
inous; in the city the neighborhood is a fraction of the 
large community area. I think that the people of our neigh- 
borhoods have very, very often sensed more the out-reach 
into the neighborhood of the church for membership and for 
money more than they have sensed the warm pulsating love 
of the church going out to bless the communities. This has 
been partly due to the competition and the stress of our 
lives. In some way the neighborhood around us must feel 
the outreach of the church to minister and to bless — a 
difficult thing to learn — to push the activities of the church 
and the evangelism of the church aggressively to all homes. 
I think every Christian institution ought to do this and 
yet not have a vestige of the spirit of proselyting. I don't 
know just how to say that except to say that people must 
not get the impression that the first idea is the building up 
of our church or the building up of our denomination. They 
must get the idea of something deeper; they must get the 
idea of a great love going out to shepherd. Really that is 
the only way to build up a church properly. That is the 
only way to create a really successful evangelism. It is 

127 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



just that kind of unselfishness that comes back in trust and 
confidence and people wanting to work. 

May I suggest, in the next place, that the great thing 
is to find certain fundamental, absolutely necessary things 
that the church can give to the people living around it — 
services of public worship in which every person who comes 
in shall realize the healing and comforting and inspiring 
presence of God; a religious education that is fundamental 
and nonsectarian which tries to take everybody back to the 
feet of Jesus; provision for the young life of the neighbor- 
hood, organized according to the age groups of the children, 
and young people. Why should not the father and mother 
feel that there is a church that is taking care of the children 
giving them moral discipline and bringing them to the feet of 
Jesus instead of exalting some particular point of view? 
Why should not mothers and fathers feel safe, particularly 
in the cities, where we have not yet learned to protect our 
young people? Make every church a Christian social center. 
These buildings, dark so much of the time, and closed so 
much of the time, should be alive with organized activities 
on an educational foundation, with wholesome recreation 
and social life for which we do not apologize, but which we 
consider as a natural expression of the love that burns in 
the hearts of Christian people just as the father and mother 
love the girl and the boy and do everything for them for 
love. Those are the suggestions for the community life of 
the church in its own neighborhood. 

Now, I pass from that to the church as a force in the 
larger life of the city. Here I press upon you that we push 
out our workers into the civic, charitable and social move- 
ments of our cities; that the pastors lead their churches 
out into these activities, taking one or two or three places 
on committees for community activities that they may know 
the community; that we take a prominent, cooperative 
part in the campaigns in our communities for the uplift 
and the betterment of the community; that our voices and 

128 



THE CHUECH A COMMUNITY FORCE 



our forces and our organized activities be a part, as a 
regiment is a part of a division and a division is a part 
of an army corps ; that the local church be a humble, unself- 
seeking force for the things that are being done in a coopera- 
tive way to bring in the city of God. We must take a new 
place in the efforts for social justice. We must learn how 
to take our place in the struggle for a living wage, for the 
short-hour day, and for the protection of the people who 
labor, and in preventing, in organized ways, our workers 
from becoming wage slaves because they have no organized 
voice in the control of their own town. We must provide 
for the security of lives, security of employment, the strength 
of society, and many more things which constitute what we 
understand as social justice. 

There are two great commandments. The first, "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all 
thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength." 
This is the first commandment. Now, there will grow out 
of that all the sweet personal side of religion which I trust 
Methodism will never lose. 

The second commandment is like unto the first — "Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and the church organized 
as a community force is the expression of the second great 
commandment. It is not something optional upon us, it is 
a part of the gospel. We will never have the gospel of the 
kingdom of God until we force the two together in a passion 
of love. 



129 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



The Church a Community Force 

Luther B. Freeman^ Pastor First Methodist Church^ 

Columbus 

Why do we not actually realize the kingdom of God here 
in Ohio? We ask that question especially of Ohio, because 
Ohio is the greatest Methodist State in the world; and if 
the kingdom of God could be realized anywhere^ certainly 
it ought to be realized here, for if there is anybody in the 
world who is doing the work of the kingdom of God, we 
believe it is the Methodist Episcopal Church. I would not 
have the question put in a spirit that would seem to be 
critical, but the fact that we have done well should not 
blind us to the fact that we are not bringing the kingdom 
of God into this State and into these cities as we ought, as 
we might. Why? 

First, because we have not quite sensed our job. We 
have not quite sensed the idea that it is our job to really 
make the State of Ohio, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, 
a place where the will of God shall be done in human society. 
Some of us think because we have money and members and 
influence we have succeeded. We have been satisfied with 
the conventional church service. When we have paid our 
bills and laid stress upon individual piety in order to get 
some men to do about as they ought, we have considered 
our work done, and have not heard the great cry of humanity 
as a whole; not seeing the fact that these men cannot do 
as they ought until the community is made such that it is 
possible for them to realize their highest and best Christian 
possibilities. 

Let us look at some of the facts. The State of Ohio has 
in it a great mass of preventable poverty. It has widespread 
ignorance. It would be hard to find anywhere in the world 
more awful cases of ignorant degradation than can be found 
in the State of Ohio. We have religious destitution that 
cannot be surpassed anywhere. Our churches, most of them, 

130 



THE CHURCH A COMMUNITY FOECE 



are closed six sevenths of the time. We are not touching 
the problem, we are not seeing it. We have an increase in 
vice and a constant increase in crime. It costs us more to 
take care of our criminals than to educate our children. 
We have the insane increasing abundantly and the feeble- 
minded growing by leaps and bounds. Our divorce courts 
show that in this State we have something like twice as high 
an average as is to be found in the nation as a whole. We 
have great cities with crowded tenement districts that are 
hardly to be matched in Chicago and New York. We have 
antiquated housing codes in some of our cities that make 
it possible for landlords to crowd men in where a decent 
human life is impossible. We have the ever-present and 
ever-accursed saloon. We have not yet been able to make 
the laboring classes of Ohio, as a whole, feel that the church 
is really in sympathy with them. Now, what message have 
we for China? If we cannot cleanse the moral atmosphere 
of the most Methodist State in the world — if we have not 
the power to clean out the Augean stables of Cuyahoga 
and Hamilton Counties — what message have we for China? 

The point is that we have not really sensed our job. Keep 
that in mind. Our Legislature is now in session. See what 
it has proposed to do — to retreat from our advanced ground 
in civil service in order to open more opportunities for party 
advancement; to repeal our progressive educational policy 
for party and for pelf ; to hamper or destroy the censorship 
of our moving pictures, which have a larger educational 
iinfluence upon the young people of Ohio than all the 
churches and Sunday schools put together. They have pro- 
posed to do away with the indeterminate sentence, which 
would be a turning back toward barbarism. Our Legislature 
is making such proposals as these and Methodism has never 
spoken. The greatest Methodist State in the world lets 
that thing go on and does not protest. Do you hear me, 
men? We will go Sunday and preach the gospel; we will 
seek for individual regeneration. That is all right — we 

131 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



want more of it; but what are you going to do about the 
great State problem? We have not quite sensed our job. 
We have elected men of notoriously bad character to the 
highest offices in the gift of the State. We get our boys 
together in the Sunday school class and tell them that 
morals are necessary, and the next Tuesday we go out with 
our votes and say that moral decency, even common moral 
decency, is not a prerequisite for election to the mayoralty 
of the capital city of the State. 

All around us men are saying, "Why stir these things up ?" 
What business have we here if we do not stir things up? 
People are constantly saying to us preachers, "Don't touch 
these things — preach the gospel." Let me tell you how I 
like to hear the gospel preached. A couple of years ago a 
member of the Board of Administration invited two Meth- 
odist preachers to go with him to visit a State institution 
where from twelve to fifteen hundred boys, who had been 
delinquent in various ways, were kept as wards of the State. 
It was called an industrial school. This official said to these 
preachers, "I know something is wrong here, and I want to 
see if you can make any suggestions." The suggestion was 
made to put in a chaplain there of the right sort. This 
alert chaplain found that the place was a sink of iniquity — 
conditions existed there that I could not think of describing 
to this body of men this morning. As a result the adminis- 
tration was overturned and a clean, well-educated man put 
in charge, and the whole thing is changed ; and now the boys 
who go there are in a school of morals and of ethics and 
of real helpfulness. I call that "preaching the gospel of 
Jesus Christ." 

Second, when we have once seen our job we must dis- 
tinctly recognize the fact that we can accomplish nothing 
until we get together. We are great bushwhackers but poor 
soldiers. We boast of our magnificent organization and the 
power of our connectionalism, but we do not work it. We 
ought to be ingenious enough to find a way by which Meth- 

132 



THE CHURCH A COMMUNITY FORCE 



odism can speak. We manage to get together very well 
when it comes to the temperance question. Can we not 
stand together on other matters? There are many great 
problems before us just as thoroughly ethical as the saloon 
problem. Shall men have one day of rest in seven? Shall 
landlords be compelled to build their tenements with a rea- 
sonable amount of air space and light for the children? 
Shall our State institutions be conducted for the purpose 
of restoring men to citizenship rather than for the purpose 
of wreaking vengeance on the wrongdoer? Shall our public 
schools be made a political football? Shall men of notori- 
ously bad character be exalted to high positions of trust 
and honor in our commonwealth? These and many other 
questions before us are so primarily moral that they should 
not be left to the heartless capitalist or the unprincipled 
politician. Because Methodism is numerically the ascend- 
ent ecclesiastical force in this State it ought to feel its 
responsibility to make clear to the public the moral bearing 
of all great movements. Ought it not to be impossible, in 
the great Methodist State of Ohio, for any law to be passed, 
for any man to be elected to office, who is repugnant to the 
intelligent moral sense of the State as a whole? 

I return to the question asked me by Bishop Anderson 
at the beginning, namely, ^'Why do we not actually realize 
the kingdom of God in Ohio ?" My answer is : Because we 
do not sense our job, and because we do not stand together. 



133 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



The Redemption of Jim 

W. M. Gilbert^ of the Morgan Memorial Church, Boston 

Dr. Gilbert presented a motion-picture with this title, depicting 
the work of his church among the less fortunate people of Boston. 

Other motion-pictures were shown to illustrate the work of Mor- 
gan Memorial Church on its farm at South Athol, Massachusetts, 
which is a fresh-air and recreation center belonging to the church. 

We give herewith part of the words of Dr. Gilbert accompanying 
the pictures. 

Morgan Memorial is a church. I say that, because there 
is a great deal of criticism and even prejudice against the 
institutional church. For two years — I say two years, 
for that is my personal relation to the institution — there 
has not been a Sunday night service or a Thursday night 
prayer meeting the year around when there have been less 
than three men that have not given themselves to God. 

Morgan Memorial is not only a church, but a children's 
settlement. It is a children's settlement that reaches some- 
thing more than a thousand children. If you were there 
next Sunday night about six-thirty, you would see four 
hundred children packed into the children's services. Of 
these four hundred children one third are Jewish, another 
third Italian, and the other third is divided among seventeen 
nationalities. 

You will not only see a children's settlement there if you 
go, but also an industrial store. The store building has 
thirty thousand square feet of floor space. In that building 
over eighty men and women a day are given employment. 

Besides this we have an Employment Bureau where every 
morning we face from one hundred to one hundred and 
twenty men and women, at least one third of them out walk- 
ing the street with no place to sleep and nothing to eat. We 
face this question and plan to give them work. 

Why did I leave the regular ministry to go to the Morgan 
Memorial? It was because when a man came to me in 

134 



THE EEDEMPTION OF JIM 



trouble then, I could only say and mean, "Brother, I am 
sorry for you ; the Lord bless you." I can now say, "Brother, 
I am sorry for you ; the Lord bless you — here is a job." 

In the pictures, you will see a true story. The name is 
fictitious of course, but it is a true story of a man who came 
to us two years ago and he is now in our regular employ. 
Last fall in Boston when these pictures were first shown he 
was sitting in the audience as a delegate to the convention, 
and he didn't know until I announced it whose story it was. 
He is a worker with us now. 

Besides the phases of work I have mentioned, you will see 
in the picture a day nursery. We have one hundred and 
one babies enrolled whose mothers have to go to work and 
leave their children with us all day. There are seventeen 
different nationalities in the one hundred and one enroll- 
ment. 

Like every other church in the downtown section of a 
city we find that at least three fourths of the problem in 
poverty and sickness and vice is due directly or indirectly 
to intemperance. So we have a Temperance Saloon which 
is open every day from five o'clock in the afternoon until 
ten-thirty at night. You will see this also in the picture. 
Its purpose is to compete with the liquor saloon as a social 
center. Social rooms are provided there with piano, games, 
and magazines. It has also a lunch counter. This, too, is 
to compete with the liquor saloon in the free lunch it gives 
with a glass of beer. Morgan tells its patron, "Give us your 
five cents, and in return we will give you a lunch better 
than the one you receive in the liquor saloon." It is better. 
Our beef stew has real beef in it. One combination is beef 
stew, bread, and coffee for five cents. Another is a small 
plate of beans, frankfurter, bread, and coffee for five cents. 
This Temperance Saloon is no longer an experiment. Over 
one hundred men come and go every evening. Never a week 
passes but that the superintendent, a reformed man, turns 
in the names of from three to five men who have signed the 

135 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



pledge and whom he has encouraged to make a new start in 
life. This department is to be greatly enlarged. 

There is now under construction a new |70,000 Temper- 
ance Settlement which, in addition to enlarged facilities for 
the Temperance Saloon and social rooms, will contain a 
barber shop, shower baths, tailor shop, and dormitories with 
a capacity of fifty beds. The working staff will include not 
only a rescue mission superintendent, but also a physician 
and psychologist. The psychologist will examine the men 
coming to us with a modified form of the Benet test just 
as the physician will diagnose their difficulty from a physical 
viewpoint. The top floors of the Temperance Settlement will 
be equipped with three-room suites which will be occupied 
by the married students of Boston University School of 
Theology. Both the student and his wife will be trained in 
city mission work. This we expect to be the most scientific 
approach, as well as the most deeply spiritual approach, to 
the unfortunate men and women of our city. 

You will see some pictures of our store where we sell ma- 
terial donated by the people of several States. These dona- 
tions bring us |35,000 per year. You will see also various 
repair shops. But I have said enough. The pictures will 
illustrate the work. 



The Making of a Country Parish 

0. M. McCoNNELL_, Pastor at Lakeville and Newkirk, 

Ohio 

John Wesley once said that the world was his parish, 
but I notice that even Mr. Wesley had to find a place on this 
earth where he could do his work. The world may be the 
parish of the Methodist Church, and we have been here 
discussing world problems, but I say to you to-day that 
I was interested in the testimony of a man who said, "I 

136 



THE MAKING OF A COUNTRY PARISH 



can't go to China, but I am going back home and do the best 
I can." 

My parish is represented on this blue print, which cost 
me six months of labor. I am not responsible for the in- 
terests of Methodism in this world, but I am responsible for 
the interests of Methodism in Lakeville and Newkirk. Be- 
fore I can answer to the Almighty God on the Day of Judg- 
ment, I have to study my problem as no other man in that 
territory knows it. I come to you this morning bringing 
you a blue print that has cost me six months of labor, and 
before I can roll up my sleeves and go into that problem 
I have to know every man, woman, and child in that terri- 
tory as well as any man can know them. I have to know 
whether they go to church, and the papers they read, whether 
they own their property or rent it, how many children in 
the family, where the boys and girls spend their nights and 
days, what kind of schools, what kind of homes, and how 
farmers farm. 

We have heard a lot about a social survey. What is a 
social survey? It is a calm, clear look into your community 
to see what is there. As ministers and as farmers and as 
laymen and as city men, you have to work from something 
like that. You have to know the problems of your com- 
munity before you can talk about bringing the kingdom of 
God into your community. 

I have six hundred and twenty-eight people in my com- 
munity. Two hundred and twenty-seven of that number do 
not attend any church. One hundred of that six hundred 
and twenty-eight are boys and girls, young men and young 
women. I have to know what that community is doing for 
those young men and those young women. Of course we 
have a Sunday school. I preach the gospel of the Son of 
Man ; I call upon them ; but they go to destruction in spite 
of that. Last Sunday about half of the young men in an 
Epworth League were drunk. I have to take the list and 
on my way home report those young men to the county seat. 

137 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



That will not stop it, but it will serve as a warning to them 
not to repeat it. One man said, "Every one of them ought 
to be fined |25.00," but that same man has said, "I keep 
whisky in my cellar and I take a drink when I want it." 
What right has he to say anything about them? What 
right have I to report those young fellows unless I take 
off my coat and try to do something to make that thing 
impossible? If I report those young men to the grand jury 
one hundred times, I will stand one hundred times with 
those young men on the baseball field, or wherever they are, 
T will stand out with them and fight for them. Every time 
I preach a red-hot sermon against the dancers I will open 
up the doors of my church to take care of them. We have 
to get down to work on these problems and look them 
squarely in the face and realize that Jesus Christ came into 
this world to bring life and bring it more abundantly. 

Now, there are some other things the country churches 
have to do. Why did I take off my coat and shovel gravel 
on the streets of our village? Do you think that I thought 
that would bring it into the kingdom of God? I have to 
do something for the folks of my town. Why do I take off 
my coat and spray the apple orchards in my vicinity? 
Because the farmers of my territory are treating their 
orchards in an unchristian way. Why do I stand before 
you and say these things? Because in the days to come we 
have to answer for the conditions in the open country. We 
want a race of men who turn their faces from the city and 
drive through mud and rain and preach to a half dozen 
people on a dark night and stay with that thing until the 
Day of Judgment, until God Almighty calls them to a place 
up higher — and the only place up higher is a place in heaven. 



138 



THE MAKING OF A COUNTRY PARISH 



The Making of a Country Parish 

H. B. Fisher^ Pastor at Alto^ Indiana 

The problem of the country church is a tremendous prob- 
lem. When I went to Alto last April I found a church that 
had had forty-four years of circuit-riding. They had lost 
out and had come to the place where they must either 
"look up" or "lock up." We called the men of the church 
together to consider the proposition of jumping the circuit 
and becoming a station. 

They were enthused. With the assistance of the Laymen's 
Missionary Movement, an every-member-canvass was made. 

The men went out two by two, and in less than forty-eight 
hours they had completed the canvass; and instead of get- 
ting |600, which was the amount in mind, they had sub- 
scriptions for over |750. This, as compared with |200 under 
the old way, was a great victory. During the forty-four 
years the general budget had not gone above |326. This year 
it will run nearly |1,300. 

It was conclusive. They would "look up" and not "lock 
up." 

I was retained as pastor. My first step was to buy a Ford. 
Then I made a community survey and called on every family. 
This enabled me to know the constituency and work and 
plan and preach intelligently. 

My people are farmers. There is no town; just a cross- 
roads church in the open country, two miles from an electric 
line and four and one half miles from a steam railway. Also, 
ninety-three per cent of my people are renters. 

In order to get a definite organization we divided our 
parish into five districts, with a chairman and two com- 
mitteemen over each district. I am the central chairman. 
This was done that I might keep in touch with all the people 
and that they might develop leaders from their own ranks. 
There is a district prayer meeting in each district every 

139 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



other week. Laymen are the leaders and it is a common 
thing to have some soul come to the Master at these services. 

We advertise, ^^^hy not attend the Alto Methodist Episco- 
pal Church Sunday?'' was printed on window cards and 
each family in the church put one or two of them in a 
conspicuous place in their front windows. 

Signboards also are used — seven of them. Then a great 
means of advertising is through these five district commit- 
tees. I call the chairmen on the phone and tell them the 
news and they call the rest of their committee. In less 
than one hour s time the whole parish is in touch with the 
message. The telephone rightly used is the rural pastor's 
great means of advertising. 

We have a strong, well-organized Farmers' Club, and it 
is doing a remarkable piece of work along lines of scientific 
and economic farming. 

During harvest, where possible, I go out in the fields to 
work and to talk with the men. After dinner we sit down 
under a tree and talk about the yield, fertilizing, and such 
topics. Then before we go back to the field I ask God's guid- 
ance for the farmers of the land that they may use their 
lands in a Christian way. This is one way in which I am 
given a chance to meet the unchurched farmer. 

I believe in politics. I work it in our community. I fight 
organized evil every time I get a chance. I will take my 
coat off and fight any man who is running the liquor traffic. 
We had that fight at the last election. I went over the 
whole of Howard County preaching temperance to the 
farmers, and we won out. 



140 



PEOGRAM OF MISSIONARY EDUCATION 



An Adequate Program of Missionary Education 

grborge f. sutherland^ secretary op the department op 
Missionary Education 

The Church was organized and has been maintained all 
of these years that Jesus Christ might control every life 
and dominate all of life. This is the world's most gigantic 
undertaking. We are attempting to accomplish this task 
with a constituency unfamiliar with its vast problems, its 
failures and its successes; with thousands of members who 
do not even realize the real purpose of the Church and 
have not enlisted in its fulfillment. 

During the first year of my relation to the missionary 
ofilce I met in a Western city a former acquaintance whom 
I had not seen for several years. A natural question con- 
cerning my occupation resulted in a statement that I was 
in the city on a certain missionary errand. This brought 
the amazing query, ^Why are you wasting your life fussing 
around with missions?" I have good reason to believe that 
the acquaintance had never investigated the missionary sub- 
ject, had probably never read a real informing missionary 
book, but had a very decided notion concerning the value 
of the enterprise. If I should come to the city of Columbus, 
meet a school-teacher, and immediately ask why she was 
wasting her life teaching school in Columbus, I would 
naturally be asked what I knew about the public school 
system of Columbus; and upon being compelled to admit 
that I had never seen a graduate of the Columbus public 
schools, had never been inside of one of the public school 
buildings, my statement that the public schools were worth- 
less, that the graduates were ignorant, and that the whole 
institution was a fraud, would be received with small favor. 
I do not know just what the Ohio procedure would be, but 
in New York city they would send such an individual to 
Bellevue for observation. 

141 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



A man can make any sort of a statement concerning his 
belief in foreign missions, can in the same breath boast 
of the fact that he has never looked up the situation, and 
still pass as an intelligent member of society. That attitude 
cannot be assumed concerning any other great factor of life, 
but we have gotten into the habit of permitting it in con- 
nection with the great Kingdom extension work of the 
Church. This, I submit, is unfair to the Church, unchris- 
tian, and a situation which must be completely changed. In 
order to do this we must attempt to accomplish two things. 

First. To create an adequate conception of the purpose 
and program of the Church. Is the Church a fold or a 
force? Everyone would admit that it has certain functions 
as a fold, but has not this phase of its work been greatly 
overemphasized to the neglect of the greater fact that the 
Church is a great force in the world? How many times 
we have invited people to come into the fold and have felt 
that was the end of the matter, and how long can we expect 
the Church to have any power as a fold if it is not first of 
all a force? If it is simply a place of protection into which 
individuals can gather to keep from the forces of sin and 
evil in the world, the very protection will soon fall away, 
the walls will break down, and the whole structure will 
crumble to the ground. Young men and young women 
should be invited to the Church, not to secure the protection 
from the w^orld, which after all, is not very necessary from 
their viewpoint, but that they may ally themselves with the 
greatest organization and campaign that the world has 
ever known. Hold up the program and the purpose of the 
Church until it appeals to our young people as the greatest 
force for righteousness in the world. 

Second. Develop a Church which is intelligent concern- 
ing present-day problems; a Church which knows of the 
successes and the failures. Many needs of the Church have 
been emphasized from this platform in the last day or two. 
It is true that we need more spiritual power, more converted 

142 



PKOGKAM OF MISSIONARY EDUCATION 



pocketbooks, and better finances, but we also need people 
better informed concerning the work of Kingdom extension. 
Enthusiasm will come only as the people know. A vision 
of the white harvest fields clearly brought before the Church, 
emphasizing the decisive character of the present church 
problems, is all-important. Is Christianity to be an ultimate 
failure in American cities? Will Christianity or Moham- 
medanism prevail in Africa? Do we really want China to 
be a Christian republic ? Get the people thinking and plan- 
ning and praying on these subjects and something will 
happen. 

With these two tasks before us, the creation of an ade- 
quate conception of the purpose and program of the Church, 
and the development of a church intelligent concerning 
present-day problems of Kingdom extension, I raise the 
question of how it can be done. 

First. It will be accomplished by presenting an adequate 
unified program of missionary education for adults. In the 
past few years many new plans of missionary education 
have been promoted, until in every department and organi- 
zation of the Church there is an adequate method of mis- 
sionary education. We have now come to the place where 
these methods need to be correlated and unified. No one 
knows that better than the pastors in this audience. We 
are now offering annually a united program of missionary 
education for all departments of the Church. The theme 
for this year is "The Social Force of Christian Missions," 
with the slogan "Christ for Every Life and All of Life." 
This program centers around the two study books of the 
women's societies and the three general publications which 
I hold in my hand. The first is The Social Aspects of 
Foreign Missions, by President Faunce, of Brown Uni- 
versity, which Bishop Oldham says contains the best sixty 
cents' worth of missionary information which he has ever 
found between the two covers of a book. The second is 
The New Home Missions, a discussion of the newer social 

143 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



phases of home missionary endeavor, and it is profoundly 
affecting the thought of the Church on these matters. The 
third is a little four-chapter book by Shailer Mathews, 
written especially for men, entitled The Individual and the 
Social Gospel, showing the relationship of the individual 
and the social gospel and of home and foreign missions. A 
whole year's program can be built around these books. Ser- 
mon and prayer meeting suggestions are published in a free 
pamphlet for pastors, programs for Sunday Schools, Ep- 
worth Leagues, and women's societies, reading campaigns, 
study textbooks helps, illustrated lectures, entertainments 
— here is a plan of unified systematic missionary education 
for the whole year, and if properly applied we feel it will 
make a deep impression in any local church. 

I want to make a plea for the more thorough forms of 
missionary education, especially the mission study class 
plan. An increasing number of pastors are taking up this 
method, until it is becoming church- wide. During the past 
two months, for example, the city of Montclair, New Jersey, 
has been having a great mission study campaign. It is a 
suburban city with all the disadvantages of commuting life, 
late hours for dinner, business interests centered in the 
metropolis. In spite of these handicaps that little city 
has between four and five hundred people in mission study 
classes meeting weekly in small groups, distributed in vari- 
ous sections of the town, interdenominational in character, 
and thereby making a great impression on the whole com- 
munity. A similar campaign last year was conducted in 
Battle Creek. This is the second successive year in which 
one of our churches in Wilkes-Barre has had twelve mission 
study classes meeting at one time, enlisting two hundred 
and twenty-seven members of the Church. This unified 
plan of missionary education, with the use of the more 
thorough plans of missionary instruction, will go far toward 
helping us accomplish the two aims which I have been dis- 
cussing this afternoon. 

144 



PKOGEAM OF MISSIONARY EDUCATION 



You will, of course, use many supplemental methods. The 
stereopticon, with such pictures as have been shown here 
to-day, will be used increasingly. World Outlook and litera- 
ture of a similar type will be found in every home. You 
will send your leaders, teachers of your classes, and young 
people from your churches, to the great training conferences 
and summer schools which are rapidly increasing in number 
and power. You will be equipped with the latest and best 
methods to bring the whole task before the whole Church. 

The second method is to adopt a definite plan for the 
children of the Church. No matter how great the problems 
of the present day may be, do not let them make us neglect 
the children. The present great awakening in religious 
education offers an unprecedented opportunity to train a 
generation of children which will be truly missionary in 
spirit and in action. Missionary instruction must be defi- 
nitely related to religious education — in fact, will become 
an integral part of religious education. A tremendous 
advance has been made during these last few years by the 
introduction of the Graded Lessons in the Sunday school. 
The next great move, so far as missions is concerned, is to 
bring about the use of supplemental, related courses of 
missionary instruction, interesting and pedagogical and re- 
lated to the Graded Lessons. Already much has been done 
in that direction, and literature of the most interesting type 
is available. There is no reason why we cannot appeal to 
the boys and girls through this literature. They are hero- 
worshipers; they are interested in great movements; they 
are in the impressionable age. Where is there more heroism 
than in the missionary enterprise? Why not use the lives 
of the great heroes of the Church to teach lessons of devo- 
tion and self-sacrifice, and why not put it in the most 
attractive manner? 

There are but two types of literature which I can take 
the time to refer to this afternoon. One is our magazine for 
boys and girls, Everyland, published quarterly, finely illus- 

145 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



trated, with stories of heroism and devotion ; published not 
for commercial gain, but for character-building purposes. I 
have already mentioned World Outlook. That is the maga- 
zine for adults. 

And then for boys and girls in their teens, what a great 
list of books we have in our Pathfinder Series! I was 
speaking the other day in a conference following the New 
England Convention of Methodist Men, showing some mis- 
sionary books, when I learned that one woman had remarked 
"What a dry lot of books that fellow must carry around!" 
In the next convention, in order that I might prove that 
my books were not dry, I read the first page of the boy's life 
of Livingstone entitled "Livingstone the Pathfinder," and 
two or three days later I had a letter asking for a copy of 
the book "that begins with a menagerie." Missionary books 
for boys and girls can be and are interesting. I will be glad 
of the opportunity to prove it to any of you. 



The Church Adequately Financed 

J. B. Trimble^ General Secretary op the Commission on 

Finance 

The topic has to do with our material resources and 
carries the implication that right financial relations between 
the local church and world tasks do not always exist. That 
the financial methods employed give basis for such inference 
is made clear by the following conditions : 

First. Frequent appeals for money in public services 
with their attendant results. That such methods are fre- 
quently employed was made clear by the questionnaire, con- 
ducted by Bishop Cranston, preceding the last General 
Conference. Note a reply by one of our German pastors: 
"We have had during the past year appeals from, and con- 
tributed to, the Anti- Saloon League of Kentucky, the Old 

146 



THE CHURCH ADEQUATELY FINANCED 



People's Home in Quincy, Illinois, an Orphanage in Berea, 
a Children's Home, an Old Ladies' Home, and the Young 
Men's Christian Association in Covington, the Dorcas Train- 
ing School in Cincinnati, the Bethesda Hospital, German 
Wallace College Endowment, William Nast College in China, 
Korea Quarter Centennial, Mission in Russia, German City 
Mission Society in Cincinnati. Next Sunday we are re- 
quested to make an appeal for an orphanage in Jerusalem, 
but I have reached the limit. I am not sure even now that 
I have enumerated all the appeals made." 

Second. The method of frequent appeals is faulty as a 
money-getter, and is deceptive and irritating to those 
solicited. Take an illustration: without any prearranged 
plan it so happened that a layman in a Western city was 
solicited on Monday for a local church debt; on Tuesday 
for the Conference college; on Wednesday for the Young 
Men's Christian Association; on Thursday the Committee 
on Civic Reform called; on Friday the representatives of 
the Women's Societies were in his office; and the pastor 
on Saturday pressed him for his contribution to the benevo- 
lent boards. 

Note the outcome. He felt financially disturbed by Wed- 
nesday of the week, and by Saturday he was irritated to the 
point of vigorous expression as follows : "What are we com- 
ing to ! Money ! Money ! Money ! Self -protection becomes 
a necessity, else I will go bankrupt." 

Some one asked how much he had given to the church 
debt, and was answered, "Nothing." "How much to the 
college?" The same negligible amount. "How much to 
the women's societies and the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation?" The fact was that he had not given a "sou- 
mark-ee" the whole week, but because of the many appeals 
felt he was on the borderland of bankruptcy. There is no 
need of going to a Western city to find illustrations of that 
kind of "frenzied finance." 

Third. Even when worked, our methods frequently are 

147 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



wholly inadequate to measure up to the possibilities pre- 
sented. For proof of this, note a few of the conditions in 
the home and foreign fields: 

A Methodist preacher in Northwest Nebraska is endeavor- 
ing to cover three whole counties and parts of two others 
by serving nineteen appointments requiring eighteen days 
to make the circuit. There is no other pastor within fifty 
miles of him. 

Some pastors in a Southern white Conference are serving 
charges on seventy-five cents a day, and Sunday is not one 
of the pay days. 

A hundred thousand homeseekers a month are going 
through the gateways of Saint Louis and Kansas City to 
the great Southwest, while inadequate church processes are 
in evidence by the fact that a Presbyterian chapel was 
dedicated recently in Texas, the only one of any denomina- 
tion within a radius of one hundred miles. 

It is estimated that there are five hundred and fifty rural 
churches in Iowa standing with closed doors, and seventeen 
hundred in the State of Missouri. 

Our missionaries in Southern Asia have the names of one 
hundred and fifty-two thousand two hundred and sixty per- 
sons who have given up idolatry and are applicants for 
Christian teaching, but cannot be cared for because the 
home Church fails to make an adequate financial response. 

Fourth. What we are doing is not always being done 
in a dignified way. The speaker was called to a strong 
church in the Southwest to raise benevolences. The year 
was closing. The seven-fold interests were presented, and 
then for forty minutes the old method of operating on the 
congregation was followed. He called a meeting of the 
officials later and said: "You are all business men. Your 
fiscal year will close soon ; peradventure you are behind on 
collections |1,000, |2,000, |5,000. Send for me and we will 
advertise and conduct, for your business, a similar process 
to that followed for the church this morning." Note the 

148 



THE CHURCH ADEQUATELY FINANCED 



prompt and vigorous response: ^'No, sir, not for our busi- 
ness. We could not afford and would not permit it." They 
were correct. That process would advertise failure and 
impede business progress, if not destroy it. 

Fifth. Many are not financially related, even in an un- 
dignified way. Two illustrations: We found a church of 
one hundred and twenty members with fourteen persons 
paying the bills, and one hundred and four on financial 
furlough. A city church with seven hundred members, two 
hundred on the payroll, and five hundred, as expressed by 
one speaker, having their "financial impulses under perfect 
control." 

There is reason for the inference in the topic. Some 
adjustment was imperative, hence the legislation of the last 
General Conference giving us a plan of finance for the 
Local Church. Most of you know what it is : 

1. An Adequate Educational Campaign. 

2. A Personal Canvass of All the Members and Supporters of the 
Church Annually. 

3. Subscriptions for Benevolences and Current Expenses on a 
Weekly Basis. 

4. The Use of a Uniform Collecting Device such as the Duplex 
Envelope. 

5. Two Distinct Budgets and Two Treasurers. 

6. Money Collected for Benevolences to be Remitted at least 
Quarterly. 

This informing, inspiring, and responsibility-imposing 
convention will soon be over. I am reminded of the lady 
hurrying from a church service who was asked if the sermon 
was done. "The sermon," she replied, "is over, hut it is yet 
to he done." 

Spurgeon, referring to the practice of the pulpit pressing 
the need of religion in business, said: "I indorse the teach- 
ing, but will go further, namely, not only religion in business, 
but business in religion." That is a good combination. The 
Church needs it and would be greatly profited thereby. 

U9 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



The Local Church Related to the World 

sombrville llght_, superintendent of goshen district, 
North Indiana Conference 

The Methodist Episcopal Church must have and use more 
sense before she can get more dollars, and she must have 
more dollars before she can properly relate herself to the 
great local and world enterprises with which she has to 
do and for which the Almighty Christ holds her responsible. 
Just how to relate the Church to a world like this is a 
question which we have before us on all hands at the present 
time. 

After delivering an address at a banquet in Battle Creek, 
Michigan, a few months ago, I was invited to the home of 
a leading physician of that city. He said: "You used a 
word to-night in your speech at the banquet that I never 
heard before. I wish you would explain it." I said, "Tell 
me what it is." He said, "That word, ^quarterage.' I never 
heard it before." I said, "Heaven's blessings upon us. I 
have long been praying to meet a man who has never heard 
that word." We are rapidly drifting away from that. What 
we can do, we certainly, under the blessing of God, ought 
to do. Now let us call attention just for a few moments 
to how this has been done in one of the districts in the North 
Indiana Conference. I am from the Hoosier State. 

The Conference must have a financial policy and that 
policy must be handed down to the local church so that 
there is no mistaking the policy, and every man in the local 
church shall know the policy of the Conference and under- 
stand that back of the pastor and the district superintendent 
stands the whole Conference in line for the great financial 
plan of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

The District Conference as well, or some other Con- 
ference similar in its functions, must exercise the same 
thing. We must bring together in this District Conference 

150 



THE LOCAL CHURCH RELATED TO THE WORLD 



the key men of our districts and bring to them the repre- 
sentatives of the various benevolent boards. The key men 
must receive the information before they can take it back. 
If the pastor is not out of the rut, take him along with these 
rut men, and these rut men must be pulled out of the ruts 
and made to count as assets instead of liabilities. 

The Quarterly Conference should be featured. Let us 
bring something before these business men. Let us have a 
Quarterly Conference that will count for something, and 
see to it that the pastor brings these men to attend. I have 
two kinds of Quarterly Conference. The first is the round- 
table Quarterly Conference. Nobody outside of the officials 
of the church is allowed to be present. We have some things 
to say to the laymen that we would not say before the whole 
Conference. That is why we give the quarterly round-table. 

At the second Quarterly Conference, we bring the people 
together in large numbers. The other day in a little town 
of two hundred and fifty people we had such a meeting 
and gave the whole group a round-up on the finances of 
the year. They were struggling to pay a |700 salary to 
the preacher and now they are paying |1,200. Every dollar 
due from that church has been paid and the canvass for 
next year has been made. 

One thing more about the featuring of the Quarterly Con- 
ference : I have one pastor who has what he calls the church 
family dinner every year. He notifies me when that dinner is 
to be held and we have the Quarterly Conference at the same 
time. He has millionaries on his official board, and these 
are the fellows we want to meet, and when he has the family 
dinner I am there to hold the quarterly session. A million- 
aire asked me this question : "How in the world are we ever 
going to finance our church so that we will be able to pay 
up?" They were then trying to pay $1,800 salary to the 
preacher. They are now paying |2,700 with a promise of 
|3,000 next year, and the membership is more than doubled. 
There is a reason — the New Financial Plan. 

151 



PART IV 
THE OUTLOOK 



By Dr. Isaac T. Headland 

O LoRD^ help us to feel all the power the Almighty 
Father will put into our hearts, if we will only conse- 
crate and give them to God. Help us these few mo- 
ments. Make us willing to say, '^My son, my daughter 
wants to go to the mission field ; I will place the funds 
where they can support my son or my daughter." O 
God, help us, if we have not young men or women, 
that we will be willing to give ourselves, to place ou?^ 
lives upon that altar. "I will go where you want me 
to go, dear Lord, I will stay where you want me to 
stay." We pray this afternoon, as we are listening to 
the consideration of these great questions, that our 
minds will not for a single moment forget that Thou 
didst have an only Son, and Thou didst give Him as 
a missionary. God grant that we may be willing to 
do as Thou hast done. We remember that Thy Son left 
heaven for thirty-three years, came down to earth, 
suffered, and died for us. God, fill our hearts this 
afternoon, make us willing to make the sacrifice, either 
ourselves or ours. Such we ask for the Master's sake. 
Amen. 



The Two Americas 
Homer 0. Stuntz 

The two Americas occupy a position for world conquest 
in the name of Jesus Christ absolutely unequaled by any 
other part of the world. To the east of us and to the west 
of us lie all the great unsolved problems of Christ's king- 
dom, in so far as those problems have to do with belated 
races of non-Christian faith; to the east of us are Europe 
and Africa; to the west of us Asia with all its hundreds of 
millions of people. Our front door looks out upon the 
millions of Africa, and our other front door — for our house 
runs through the block — faces upon all the unevangelized 
myriads of Asia. 

Furthermore, God has singularly marked out North 
America in these recent years as the source from which He 
is to draw supplies of money and of men and of inspiration 
and of leadership for the battle of saving the world outside 
of us. There was a time when the leadership in the mission- 
ary work of churches was altogether across the seas. It is 
but a little more than one hundred years ago since the first 
band of missionaries, gathered in a New England city, were 
consecrated, near Andover and Salem, and went out into 
the heathen world. But in these hundred years we have 
pulled up from no place to some place, until now a little 
better than one half of the foreign missionary force of the 
world is from the United States and Canada. 

Furthermore, the great movements of the Spirit of God 
on behalf of the world which have swept into our vision in 
the last twenty-five years have all been begun in North 
America. Why did God not choose Germany or England? 
Why didn't He choose some of the countries of the Old 

155 



THE CHALLENGE OP TO-DAY 



World for the birthplace of the Student Volunteer Move- 
ment? Why didn't He choose the Old World as the birth- 
place of the Young People's Movement or for the Laymen's 
Movement, instead of the United States? 

Lying to the south of this great nation here is another 
continent, as large as this, having areas so great that I 
could not convey any just impression of their size by any 
mere term. 

The whole of the continent contains many more thousand 
square miles of useful land than North America, for we 
don't waste any frozen country as in our own North. We 
are not so lavish about mountains down there as in North 
America. I traveled once in Illinois, and I remember there 
was so much hay they had to stack it out. We don't stack 
out so much land down there. There is more of it available 
for cotton, corn, alfalfa, wheat, oats, and cattle, and the 
general uses of man. 

Brazil is larger in size than the United States. Peru is 
as large as the United States beginning with Maine and 
ending with the western line of Indiana and running down 
to the Gulf. 

Bolivia is as large as all of Germany, Austria, Italy, 
France, and England put together, with Ireland thrown in. 

Now, South America has been robbed of some things that 
North America has had. In the first place, it was not settled 
by people who came seeking religious and civil liberty ; but 
it was settled by people of monarchial notions with a mad 
lust for goldc They came with no ideals; they have lived 
without ideals. 

The second thing is that they came without any influences 
of the Protestant Reformation, without an open Bible, with- 
out religious liberty. In the only schools that were acces- 
sible to them they were taught that the man who accepted 
any other doctrines than those that were taught him by the 
Church was lost and lost forever. And they set the Inqui- 
sition up in the city of Lima and Arequipa, and put more 

156 



THE TWO AMERICAS 



than one hundred thousand men and women to torture, and 
many hundreds of them were burned alive in the public 
square in the city of Lima, as the official records show. 

I have stood, within twenty-five days, in the public square 
of the city of Lima on the very spot where these victims 
were burned alive within one hundred and fifty years from 
to-night. These are facts. 

When you go back along the line of our civilization and 
rob the home and church and school and state and society 
generally, of the benefits that have come to us from the 
wisdom of religious thinking and the open Bible, you spoil 
our civilization at one blow. They have had no chance. 

You must not blame South America for occasionally 
having a revolution. It is only the South American type 
of the initiative and referendum. They have no other way 
to get a man out of office than to blast him out. Why? 
Because they haven't a great body of public sentiment 
framed on the idea of justice and fairness in the open forum 
of debate saying that the majority will rule and the minority 
will submit to it, as we have here. 

The third great loss it has suffered through all these years 
is the loss of what we have had in the fullest measure, and 
that is free public education for children from six to twenty- 
one years of age. The result of that is that in South 
America with fifty millions of people, there is an average 
of seventy-eighty per cent of illiteracy; in Peru, ninety per 
cent of illiteracy; in Bolivia, eighty-eight per cent of 
illiteracy ; in the Argentine Republic, which is the brightest 
of the South American republics, fifty-one per cent of 
illiteracy. 

The entire public school expense of all the thirteen re- 
publics south of the Panama Canal last year was |21 5,000 
less than the city of New York expended on her own public 
schools last year. 

Take a weaker nation, the nation of Peru, where they set 
up their educational experiment a few years ago and have 

157 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



it elaborately put on paper. For instance, education is 
compulsory ; and yet in the state of Peru, there are school- 
rooms and seats for the merest fraction of the number that 
are of school age. They have just as fine courses on paper as 
your State University here, whether in pedagogy or electrical 
engineering. 

Now, what about the attitude of all that country toward 
us? Well, frankly, they don't like us. They suspect us. 
They are a Latin people, and we are Anglo-Saxon, and you 
know we haven't the best reputation. You have heard 
Bishop Fowler say the first thing the Anglo-Saxon did 
when he reached America was to fall on his knees, and the 
next thing was to fall on the aborigines. 

We have been a hard lot to get along with. They haven't 
forgotten the Mexican War, nor why we went into it. They 
haven't forgotten what Theodore the First said when he 
wanted the Panama Canal and took it. They haven't for- 
gotten these things. 

Let me tell you another thing on the other side of the 
account; there isn't anything that ever disarmed that sus- 
picion so much as the hearty acceptance by President Wilson 
of the A. B. C. Mediation last summer. That one move of 
our astute President did more to placate fifty millions that 
were hostile than any amount of speech-making ex-Presi- 
dents and other luminaries could have done in a lifetime. 
Thinking men among them are convinced that we do not 
want their territory. 

Now, the Protestant missionaries are at work down there. 
There are several of the churches working in a federation 
with one another. What have we achieved ? We have some- 
thing like sixty or seventy thousand Protestants in South 
America. The Methodists have between eleven and twelve 
thousand of that total. We have the most property and 
largest membership among the Protestant churches there. 
But our strength increases our responsibilities. 

What are our problems? Our problems are, first, to get 

158 



THE TWO AMERICAS 



enough good missionaries to do the work. Don't imagine 
you can send us weak men and have them amount to much. 
They must meet atheism and infidelity and a dozen other 
things, and give a reason for everything every time they 
turn around. Don't send a man who is not familiar with 
philosophic thought and who is not acquainted with German 
rationalism, and who does not know the ground he stands 
on, intellectually, philosophically, historically, scientifically, 
and every other way. We want a few men, but every man 
must be trained for his work. 

Now, what are we doing ? Well, we have started a system 
of schools. William Taylor went into that on the west 
coast. He couldn't do anything else down there. He went 
there to evangelize it, and found that religious intolerance 
barred his way, and now on the west coast to the southern 
part of Chile we have a fine network of schools. They are 
doing splendid work. Dr. Taylor held revival meetings in 
two or three schools, and many children gave their hearts 
to the Lord, and young men and women whom he found led 
others to Christ. 

One night at a hotel in Bolivia a gentleman came to me 
after I had eaten an alleged supper of goat meat and said, 
"You are a clergyman, are you not?" I said, "Yes, sir, I 
have the honor." He said : "You know, I went to a mission 
to school in Concepcion and in Bolivia. I know of your 
missionaries. My wife and I are members of the Methodist 
Church. We haven't any church here. Can you establish 
one here?" I found that this Methodist who had been con- 
verted at one of our schools was working in the interior 
and holding a Bible class every Thursday night among the 
people, teaching them the Word of God. 

When I came to the office in New York a few years ago as 
a Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, I found that 
the year previous we worked the whole year through and 
our net loss of membership in South America was two and 
a half per cent. The next year, the first year I was in 

159 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



South. America, we had a net loss of one half of one per cent. 
I arrived just in time to hold the Conference. The next 
year we pulled up until it was a gain of three per cent. The 
next year there was a net gain of eight per cent. This year 
in some parts it was thirty per cent, with an average of 
eleven and a half per cent. That is to say, we have had 
more souls turn to God in our Methodist Church in South 
America in the last twelve months and come regularly into 
church membership through the gateway of regeneration by 
the Holy Ghost than we had previously in any five years. 
I thank God for that. That is in answer to many prayers 
that have gone up to God and in response to very much 
planning and splendid team work on the part of as courage- 
ous men and women as you would find anywhere in the 
world. 

Now, what does South America need ? It needs, primarily, 
your prayers. There is not a man here who does not believe 
in prayer. Pray for South America; keep it on your 
heart. T^Tiere now there are fifty million, in a few years 
there will be one hundred millions, and in one hundred years 
there will be two hundred and fifty million people. Where 
states will rise, great interests will be centered, and you 
and I of North America have the privilege of stamping the 
seal of Jesus Christ on that rapidly maturing life, and 
making it a country which will be a country ruled over 
by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our Lord. No other 
nation will do it, for reasons which I cannot discuss. 

We are giving this year |100,000 to South America. Now, 
I don't know how much you are paying for tlie support of 
the pastors in your district. I wish I had that thrown on 
the screen. I will guarantee 3^ou are spending in this one 
district, or the Cleveland or Springfield District, more 
money than the Methodist Episcopal Church is granting us 
in the face of agnosticism, materialism, infidelity, and 
atheism, to found a Methodist Church among fifty million 
of people. Now, brethren, we must do something more in 

160 



THE TWO AMERICAS 



the matter of giving to God for that continent. I come home 
burdened with needs. 

For instance, we had a chance at Santiago for organizing 
a dormitory for a normal school; ninety per cent of its 
students women with no decent place to live. When we 
got a chance to open a dormitory I borrowed the money 
and paid interest on it. I repaired a couple of floors, moved 
the missionaries out and rented houses for them, and put 
a splendid woman of our church in charge of the dormitory. 
Now, I have to find that money while I am home. 

We go from city to city in that continent where the gospel 
is not preached, cities of one hundred thousand without 
one witness for Jesus Christ, great throbbing cities with 
electric street-car lines and government schools, and no man 
testifying that a soul can find Jesus Christ by faith. Men, 
you could not walk through a city like that, were you a 
bishoj) of our church, and not plant a church there. I have 
gone ahead and done that with faith. Noav, will you 
back me? 

In the city of Buenos Ayres we must establish a Christian 
college. There isn't among any of the Spanish-speaking 
people of South America an institution corresponding to 
Ohio Wesleyan at Delaware. 

Now, dear friends, we need besides that, a good central 
industrial school, and we are planning it at Mercedes. About 
twelve years ago a wealthy ranch owner left us twenty-six 
acres of land in the state. We are trying to build up a 
place where our orphans are taught to do something prac- 
tical in a country that is agricultural and can't be anything 
else. We have forty-two boys in that orphanage. I want 
to take back enougli to build a good building and install a 
})rinting press, motors, a i)ump, a saw, and other things 
we need. 

And we need a Bible traiuing school for the young woukmi. 
Pray about that and think about that. The womanhood 
of South America are the great obstacle to the conversion 

161 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



of South America, as they are the most afraid of the priest- 
craft of the country. So we need to train women workers. 
We need to take our orphans and the boys who are poor 
and struggling, and train them to be able to go out and 
earn their own living and be leaders in their local churches 
and communities. 

I hope the time will come Avhen we can carry across South 
America a great evangelistic campaign that wall set the 
whole of South America aflame w^ith the gospel that will 
be heard in several places for the first time. 

God help the two Americas to find Christ, and then in 
their strategic relation to the rest of the w^orld face the 
masses of heathenism, to give the Christ to all who reach 
out their hungry bands and that cry for the bread of life, 
to the east and to the west of us. 



Around the World with a Missionary Camera 

Dr. S. Earl Taylor^ Corresponding Secretary of the 
Board op Foreign Missions 

Dr. Taylor gave two illustrated addresses — one entitled. 
Around the World with a Missionary Camera, the other on 
his trip through North Africa. These addresses were pro- 
fusely illustrated with one hundred and fifty finely colored 
slides, the photographs for which Dr. Taylor had himself 
taken during his trips through the mission countries. It is 
impossible to present on the printed page anything like a 
report of such monologues, but a number of the most strik- 
ing pictures from the first-named lecture are reproduced 
with explanatory notes. 

In the interests of the missionary propaganda Dr. Taylor 
has prepared and is preparing a number of these illustrated 
lectures for use throughout the Church. 

162 



EOUXD THE WORLD WITH A MISSION-ARY CAMERA 




The dominant impression made on the mind as 
one visits a heathen land is that of the multitude — a 
multitude of people "as sheep without a shepherd.'' The 
religious festivals in India bring together tens of thou- 
sands of devotees who pray to a god who can give 
nothing because he has nothing to give. 

Every tAvo weeks in India the number of people who 
become Christians is greater than the number repre- 
sented in this i3icture. 



163 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 




A KINDERGARTEN BAND IN JAPAN 

It is the kindergarten founded by "The Lady of the 
Decoration," the young missionary woman who did 
such a wonderful work that an attractive book with 
the above title has been written about her. When she 
first went to Japan the doors of the homes were closed 
against her, and everywhere there Avas prejudice against 
the missionaries ; but she gathered these little children 
in her arms and so won the confidence of the people 
that a great kindergarten was established and the 
homes of the people were everywhere opened. On this 
kindergarten foundation a great woman's college has 
been built. 



164 



ROUND THE WORLD WITH A MISSIONARY CAMERA 




Upon this foundation of cliildliood, missionary forces 
are building a great Sunday school organization. You 
have no idea of the size of the Sunday school army 
in non-Christian lands until you visit these lands. In 
India there are more than Iialf a million children 
enrolled in the Christian Sunday schools. 

This is a photograph of a Sunday School Convention 
in Tokyo, Japan, where more than ten thousand people 
were assembled. 



165 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 




This picture sliows the Isabella Thoburn College 
as it is to-day — a iiioderu building of the type now 
being erected on the foreign fields. For |30,000 in 
India, one can erect a building that would cost |150,000 
if built in connection Avith one of our colleges in 
America. 

Here is an opportunity for a great investment in 
empire and Kingdom-building. 



IGG 



EOUND THE WORLD WITH A MISSIONAEY CAMERA 




At the crossroads of Asia, in Singapore, a school 
was founded by Bishop Oldham thirty years ago. 
After much prayer and etfort buildings were erected 
which were intended to accommodate eight hundred 
students. It took mighty faith to project an institution 
of much magnitude, but now this school is attended 
by sixteen hundred students and they have to have 
morning sessions for one crowd and afternoon sessions 
for another. 

What would you think if you were to visit Singapore 
and were to see a street croAvded, as this one is, with 
students who came down to greet you? This school 
has the credit of mothering a group of similar schools 
in the Malay Peninsula, in Java, in Borneo, and at 
Penang. 



167 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 




The missionaries are giving iiiucli attention to physi- 
cal training in the Orient. There was a traditional 
contempt for bodily exercise on the part of scholars, 
and anyone who knows yonng men will understand the 
physical and moral danger which beset a student body 
living sedentary lives. The missionaries have been 
quick to introduce modern forms of physical training, 
and the 5 oung men are taking to it with great enthu- 
siasm. 

The American game of baseball is being introduced 
throughout Eastern Asia. Here is a crack Methodist 
Japanese nine, pitted against a government university 
in Tokyo, and, incidentally, winning the game. 



108 



ROUND THE WORLD WITH A MISSIONARY CAMERA 




Laying the foundation for liappy homes by modern 
courses in domestic science. 



169 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 




In addition to buildings and a large student body, 
Peking L'niversitv also has a goodly measure of Chris- 
tian devotion. This is a photograph of the Student 
^^olunteers in the university — men, who, because of 
their knoAvledge of the English language, could earn 
from |100 to .|!250 a month in government service, but 
who have solemnly dedicated themselves to the Chris- 
tian ministry in China or adjacent lands, where they 
will never get more than |25 a month. 



170 



ROUND THE WORLD WITH A MISSIONARY CAMERA 




We have here the interior of an operating room. The 
native assistants have been trained by this doctor. 
W^hen he first came to India he was absolutely alone 
and had to work in a thatch-covered mud house. Noth- 
ing but the most difficult cases came to him in the be- 
ginning, because terrible stories had been told about 
the Christian doctors who would take out the eyes of 
the patients, etc. It was only when the cases were 
hopeless that the patients were brought. Tlie doctor 
says, "I realized that a single mistake would cost me 
my reputation and usefulness, and I never Avent into 
the ofjerating room but that I prayed God to steady 
my hand. He answered my prayer, and tliis great 
hospital has been erected by the gifts of a grateful 
people." 



171 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 




The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society also has 
its hospitals. An operating room in a hospital in 
China. Refined and higlih' trained women from 
America go to the degradation and tilth of heathenism 
to bring relief to their sisters in distress. Thev are 
also training native women as nurses, doctors and 
surgeons. 

One half the human race is without a knowledge of 
medicine, surgerj', hygiene, or sanitation. 



172 



EOUXD THE WORLD WITH A MISSIONARY CAMERA 




We now come to another form of missionary worlv — 
1lie publishing liouse and the stream of literature which 
Hows from it. This is our Methodist Publishing House 
in Luclvuow, India. 

One half the world is absolutely illiterate. 



173 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 




Famines Avere formerly frequent. At such times the 
natives ate even the leaves and bark of the trees. But 
the missionaries have heard their cry, and now famine 
relief camps are organized where people wait in orderly 
fashion for food and after food is ];)rovided work is 
given. Great irrigation projects are thus being carried 
out which will presently do away with the conditions 
which have brought about the famine. 



174 



BOUND THE WORLD WITH A MISSIONARY CAMERA 




Bishop Lewis Avas asked tlie question, "What does 
opium-smoking do to a man? What is the end of it 
all?" This picture illustrates what he said in reply. 
The yerj physical life of the nation was being wasted 
away. 



175 



THE CHALLEXGE OF TO-DAY 




But missionary education and enlightenment have 
worked together to produce a great change. Anti- 
smoking societies were formed, and stacks of opium 
pipes have been brought to the central plazas and have 
been publicly burned. An imperial edict has put an 
end to the production of opium in China, and the mis- 
sionaries write that they now travel for Aveeks without 
seeing a single opium poppy plant. 



176 



ROUND THE WOELD WITH A MISSIONARY CAMERA 




In some countries great throngs of people assemble, 
as in the case of Korea, where they must gather on the 
hillsides because there is no building large enough to 
hold them. 



177 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 




The North China Conference in session salutes 3^ou. 
Upon this foundation the Church of Christ will ulti- 
mately prevail in China. 



178 



ROUND THE WORLD WITH A MISSIONARY CAMERA 



SUMMARY 

PROTESTANT FOREIGN MISSIONARY 
SOCIETIES OF THE WORLD 

Total Home Income . . , $30,404,401 

Total Income from field . . 7,902,256 

Foreign Missionaries . . . 24,092 

Native Workers . . , . 111,862 

Communicants . . . » , 2,644,170 

Adherents 1,805,802 

Added to Church last year , 212,635 

Sunday Schools . . = « 30,605 

Sunday School pupils . . . 1,488,491 

Hospitals and Dispensaries . 738 
Institutions of Higher Learning 2,475 

Students in same .... 128,861 

Other Schools ..... 32,320 

Pupils in same ..... 1,541,286 



Let us summarize the work of Protestant missions 
througliout the world. The Methodist Episcopal 
Church is only one of many great cooperating forces 
which contribute to this remarkable total. A man who 
is a member of more than ninety corporations said, 
"This is big business when viewed from our stand- 
point." 



179 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 




We began with multitudes. We end Avith multitudes. 
Dr. Barton of the x\merican Board, after a visit to 
China, was asked what the dominant impression was 
after his visit. He replied: "O, the multitudes. I see 
them at night as I shut my ejes, multitudes 'as sheep 
without a shepherd' ; and in all the throng I did not 
see the face of a man, woman, or child that T felt could 
wait until another generation to learn of Jesus Christ." 



180 



AN AWAKENED ASIA 



An Awakened Asia 

George Sherwood Eddy 

During the last half of 1914 a tour was undertaken 
through the thirteen principal capital and metropolitan 
cities of China for an extended evangelistic campaign. In 
1913 Dr. Mott and the speaker had visited many of the same 
cities on a similar mission. Then some four thousand non- 
Christian students and Chinese leaders were brought into 
Bible classes, and of this number thirteen hundred applied 
for membership in the churches, being received by baptism 
or on probation. During that year the student audiences 
averaged about two thousand a night. This year interest 
so heightened that attendance at the main public meetings 
averaged three thousand, and in five cities of the south four 
thousand a night. A total of more than eighteen thousand 
inquirers gave in their names, promising to make a study 
of the four Gospels with open mind and honest heart and to 
begin to follow the life and teaching of Jesus Christ accord- 
ing to their conscience. About half this number immedi- 
ately enrolled in Bible classes and are being taught by 
selected teachers specially prepared in normal courses. 

The facts indicate a remarkable openness on the part of 
the leaders of China to give an earnest hearing to the gospel 
of Christ. For a century three classes largely have held 
aloof from Christianity, namely, the officials, the literati 
(or students), and the business men of China. To penetrate 
these powerful groups this campaign was planned. To 
restrict attendance to these classes men were admitted by 
ticket only. Our problem was not to reach the four hundred 
millions of China but the republic's few hundred thousand 
leaders in the great centers. 

We began in Tientsin the middle of September. On the 
opening night we made our way down to the great Guild 
Hall on the modern electric tramway which runs on the 

181 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



side of the former city wall, where as late as the siege of 
1900 the Chinese fought to keep out the "foreign devil" with 
his hated civilization and religion. Arrived in the Guild 
Hall, we found two thousand students crowding every seat 
and several hundred turned away from the doors. Meetings 
were held also for women students. On the last day a total 
of over one thousand inquirers expressed their desire to 
join Bible classes in order to make a study of the four 
Gospels and an honest investigation of Christianity. By 
November one hundred and twenty Bible study groups were 
solidly under way. Last year after the meetings in this city, 
five hundred of these Confucian students had enrolled in 
Bible classes conducted among the students of every one 
of the fourteen government colleges and higher institutions 
in Tientsin; and later over two hundred of them were re- 
ceived by the churches either by baptism or as probationers 
requesting admission to the Church. 

We entered Peking with a sinking heart, "in weakness, 
and in fear, and in much trembling." A great door and 
effectual was opened unto us, but there were many adver- 
saries. President Yuan Shih Kai received us and expressed 
deep interest in the meetings. He is liberally contributing 
every year to the national work of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association. The Vice-President of the republic, Gen- 
eral Li Yuan Hung, whom I had known last year as Gov- 
ernor at Wuchang, gave us a special luncheon and requested 
us to address his family and guests. We presented to him 
Christianity as the hope of China. 

The sympathetic and cordial cooperation of the officials 
and students was in striking contrast to their attitude in 
the bloody persecution of 1900. The Ministry of the Interior, 
at their own suggestion, granted us a site for a pavilion for 
the meetings, within the Forbidden City itself. It is the 
first time in history that Christian meetings have been 
allowed within this sacred precinct. While the Ministry of 
the Interior gave us the site, the Ministry of War granted 

182 



AN AWAKENED ASIA 



two hundred tents from the army to make the structure rain- 
I)roof. The Minister of Education granted a half-holiday 
to all the government students in Peking to enable them to 
attend the opening meeting. 

On the opening day four thousand students crowded the 
hall and listened with earnest attention. They interrupted 
almost every paragraph with enthusiastic applause. After 
hard hitting on moral issues, however, the audience on the 
second day was reduced to a little less than three thousand, 
as we spoke on the sins which are undermining China's indi- 
vidual and national life. On the third night we spoke for 
over an hour on "Jesus Christ, the only Hope of China." 
More than one thousand men signed cards as inquirers to 
join Bible classes from more than a score of colleges in the 
city. A meeting was also held in another part of the city 
attended by seventeen hundred of the gentry and business 
men. The Board of Trade asked for three hundred reserved 
seats at this meeting. Three hundred and fifty of these men 
indicated their desire to join Bible classes. 

At one meeting held for inquirers who were deemed near 
the point of decision for the Christian life I recognized a 
former governor, two generals, a private secretary to the 
President, the director of China's national bank, other 
prominent officials, and a young non-Christian philanthropist 
who within a year has given 1 12,000, Mexican, to Christian 
work, and is providing free education for several hundred 
students and distributing the Bible to hundreds in the 
capital. 

In addition to the fourteen thousand who attended the 
evangelistic meetings in Peking the message was extended 
to thousands of readers by the twelve Chinese newspapers 
of the fifty which published the reports of the lectures. Many 
of them are continuing a series of articles on Christianity. 
Over one hundred newspapers in China are thus cooperating 
in this Christian campaign. 

Nearly two hundred Chinese Christian young men were 

183 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



normally trained in advance to lead the Peking Bible classes 
in conserving the results of the meetings. Preaching places 
in twelve parts of the city were arranged, offering special 
Sunday evening meetings for the inquirers to relate them 
to the churches. 

Ohangsha, the capital of Hunan, in Inland China, long 
the most bigoted of the provinces, was next visited. I re- 
member some twenty years ago writing a little pamphlet on 
^The Supreme Decision of the Christian Student," appealing 
for volunteers to enter unoccupied Hunan, which then had 
over twenty million people without a single missionary or 
Christian. As we left the steamer and entered the great 
gates of the ancient walled city we saw the posters announc- 
ing the evangelistic meetings on the very notice boards where 
a few years ago hung commandments to kill the '*fo reign 
devils" who had come to make medicine out of the eyes of 
their kidnaped children. Here fourteen, or even four, years 
ago we would have been driven out by angry mobs, but what 
a change to-day! 

As we came to the opening meeting there was a young 
missionary acting as a gatekeeper who had first entered the 
city on Thanksgiving Daj, 1898. Driven out from the city 
gate by the officials, he had come back a week later by another 
gate, only again to be forced out and driven down the river. 
The next year when he returned he was again attacked by the 
crowd, swung by his queue, beaten and driven from the city 
by the angry mob, shouting, "Kill the foreigner." At the 
meetings this year he opened the gate of the meeting to let 
in the throngs of modern students who almost fought to 
get tickets of admission to hear the message of Christianity. 

As typical of the change wrought in this city and province 
in one short decade was our interpreter, Mr. Nieh, who 
stood out as a striking object lesson before the students. He 
was a member of the leading family of the city. His father 
had been governor of four provinces in China. His uncle, 
Marquis Tseng, was China's Minister to England, France, 

184 



AN AWAKENED ASIA 



Germany, and Russia. His grandfather was Tseng Kuo Fan, 
China's greatest statesman of the century. Four years ago 
he was a young Confucian atheist. He had hated Chris- 
tianity for the heavy indemnities which his people had been 
made to pay when Eoman Catholic Christians had been 
injured. When his father, the aged governor, was lying at 
the point of death, he sent for Dr. Hume of the Yale Hos- 
pital, who had quietly become his friend in spite of the fact 
that the young man always refused to speak of religion. As 
he saw Dr. Hume kneel at his father's bedside and pray, he 
was deeply moved. Finally, after some days, he said to 
Dr. Hume, "It is too late to save my father, but I want you 
to kneel and pray for me here by my father's bedside." 

When Hunan seceded last year this young man went with 
a Red Cross corps to the front. Taken for a spy, he was 
arrested and thrown into prison at Wuchang. Four of his 
fellow prisoners were beheaded. There, face to face with 
death without trial, he turned to God, and for the first time 
in his life prayed to his heavenly Father. Instantly a 
strange peace seemed to fill his heart and in a moment he 
knew that there was a God and that He had heard his prayer. 
After his release from prison he was baptized last Christmas 
Day, but was so weak that he felt he could not make one 
hundred Christians in the little chapel hear his feeble testi- 
mony. But he stood in the great pavilion and swept that 
throng of students with his burning words, boldly testifying 
to Jesus Christ as his own Saviour and the only hope of 
China. 

Ten days were spent in three great cities of the Yangtze 
Valley. In Wuchang the situation fairly bristled with diffi- 
culties. On the opening night it rained, yet more than one 
thousand students came out and sat for an hour in the rain 
with their umbrellas up. I had to speak with the rain on 
my face or dripping down ray neck. But the earnestness of 
the students was such that they remained to the end in 
spite of every obstacle. The next day it rained all day, yet 

185 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



that night fifteen hundred students came out through the 
mud and listened earnestly as we spoke on sin. On the 
third night twenty-five hundred students filled the great 
pavilion. After we had spoken for an hour on Christ as the 
only Saviour, more than two thousand remained to an after- 
meeting and four hundred enrolled themselves as desiring 
to join Bible classes to search the Scriptures. 

Arrived in Hangchow, we hastened to the modern theater 
where the meetings were to be held. The Confucian owners 
had granted the theater for three afternoons, canceling an 
important theatrical engagement and refusing to take the 
several hundred dollars a day which was the usual rental. 
Inside the theater we found twenty-five hundred students, 
while outside two thousand more were standing patiently 
for an hour, waiting their turn to get in. After delivering 
our message to the first audience the theater was emptied 
and filled again to overflowing, when the address was re- 
peated. The Military Governor, who was to have taken the 
chair, at the last moment was compelled to send his repre- 
sentative to open the meeting for him. After we had spoken 
frankly on the desperate need of China, the graft, corruption, 
and moral destitution of the country, we expected a smaller 
audience on the second day. On our arrival at the theater, 
however, we found it filled with twenty-five hundred students 
and the doors closed. Two thousand men were again kept 
standing in the street for over an hour awaiting the second 
sittings. 

Our interpreter in Changsha was Mr. C. T. Wang, the 
young Christian statesman of China, formerly a member of 
President Yuan's cabinet and Vice-President of the National 
Senate. He is now national secretary of the Young Men's 
Christian Association with Mr. F. S. Brockman. 

Two men stood out as leaders in that group. There was 
the young Governor, less than thirty-five years of age, a 
soldier in the revolution, now a general and the ruler of 
seventeen million in this enlightened province. Beside him 

186 



AN AWAKENED ASIA 



sat his young Secretary of State, Mr. S. T. Wen. A few 
years ago this young man was a Confucianist, knowing 
little of Christianity. With the Governor, he was one of 
the leaders of the revolution that made China a republic. 
Three years ago he came to the province to act as Minister 
for Foreign Affairs and Secretary of State. In 1913 he 
came to Shanghai as the Governor's representative to attend 
a banquet tendered Dr. Mott and myself and to request a 
modern Young Men's Christian Association building for the 
city of Hangchow. Immediately on his return, at his recom- 
mendation, the Governor gave a splendid lot, covering two 
and a half acres of the most valuable land in the center 
of the Manchu city. Side by side, the young Governor and 
his Secretary of State carried on the great fight against 
opium, until recently they celebrated the absolute prohibi- 
tion and cessation of this evil in their province. 

After I had stated the claims of Christianity, while my 
interpreter was speaking with the Governor I went over to 
the Secretary of State and said to him : "The Ethiopian said 
to Philip after he had heard the gospel, 'What doth hinder 
me to be baptized?' I ask you. Will you become a Chris- 
tian?" He said, "I will." "When will you receive baptism 
and join the church?" I asked him. "Next Sunday," was 
his prompt response. On the following day this fearless 
man took the chair at the meeting and stated publicly that 
he had decided to become a Christian. Even the non-Chris- 
tian students broke out into applause when he made this 
bold statement. On the following Sunday he was baptized. 
On the same day, fulfilling the request of President Yuan 
Shih Kai for a day of prayer for peace, the Governor and 
the Secretary of State ordered prayer for the peace of 
Europe and the world to be offered in all the cities of his 
province. 

Leaving Hangchow, we made our way down the southern 
coast to Foochow, the "city of joy." On the morning the 
meetings were to begin I visited the quiet cemetery where 

187 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



the missionary martyrs of Foochow lie buried. I stood 
beside the eleven graves of tJiose who were mobbed, torn limb 
from limb and hacked to pieces less than twenty years ago, 
and then went to the Guild Hall for the meetings. Two 
thousand Confucian students and young men were crowding 
every seat in the hall, and almost an equal number were 
standing outside in an overflow meeting, waiting to hear 
the message repeated. Sitting on the platform was the aged 
Archdeacon Wolfe. When he arrived in China fifty-two 
years ago there were but four Christians in this part of the 
empire. He himself was driven out of the city. Now prac- 
tically every student in the city attended the meetings, as 
well as the leaders of every section of the community. On 
the second day the hall was again twice filled, and six 
hundred students and others enrolled themselves as inquirers 
to join Bible classes to study the four Gospels. 

But the most significant development of this year was the 
new departure in organizing from this city a province-wide 
campaign to carry the message of Christianity to all parts 
of Fukien with its eleven million inhabitants. Three hun- 
dred and fifty Chinese workers, including the strongest lead- 
ers from ten neighboring cities, were gathered in Foochow 
for a week of special training in preparation for the cam- 
paigns in their own cities. Some of them traveled for ten 
days, a distance of three hundred miles, by boat or on foot, 
to attend the meetings. The poor Christians of the province 
raised |4,000 toward the cost of the undertaking. After a 
few weeks of meetings in these cities, which in turn called 
in the Christian workers and representatives of the outlying 
districts and villages, the campaign was carried on to the 
utmost limits of the province. The audiences in the first 
line of secondary cities totaled eighty-one thousand one hun- 
dred and ninety-one. The number of inquirers already re- 
ported from Fukien much exceeds that for all China in the 
1913 effort. 

It is significant to note the growth of the evangelistic 

188 



AN AWAKENED ASIA 



movement as measured by the attendance on our last four 
visits to Hongkong: these have been respectively three hun- 
dred, six hundred, fifteen hundred, and four thousand a 
night. The large native theater which had been reserved 
for the meetings was filled each night three times in succes- 
sion, compelling us to repeat each address many times in 
order to reach the crowd attending the meetings. On the 
second night when inquirers were called for, over six hun- 
dred non-Christian men signed cards and have been enrolled 
in Bible classes. Separate meetings were held in the various 
colleges, in each of which a number of non-Christian students 
decided to enter the Christian life. 

Let us now gather up a few outstanding facts from this 
tour of five months in China. First is the remarkable attend- 
ance, which is an index of the present evangelistic oppor- 
tunity among the students and official classes of China. The 
total attendance for last year at the evangelistic meetings 
was seventy-eight thousand two hundred and thirty; this 
year it was more than double that number. While last year 
there were seven thousand inquirers, this year there were 
over eighteen thousand, Fukien Province alone reporting 
nine thousand two hundred and thirty. Foochow reports 
the first fifty non-Christian students already baptized ; Can- 
ton over seventy. A Buddhist priest from Amoy has sent 
me his sacred robes, bell and drum, with his Buddhist Scrip- 
tures, and has become a Christian after fifteen years of 
fruitless search for peace in a Buddhist monastery. 

A second noteworthy feature is the remarkable coopera- 
tion on the part of the officials of China. From the Presi- 
dent down, the leading officials received us with great 
cordiality, hospitality and openness of mind. The Vice- 
President and the governors of the provinces we visited 
entertained us and in some cases took the chair at meetings, 
erected pavilions for the evangelistic meetings, or sent proc- 
lamations through their city or province with favorable 
announcements of the meetings. 

189 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAT? 



Thirdly, the development of the new province-wide cam- 
paign will make possible the reaching in time of the remotest 
country districts of Inland China. 

After four thousand years of preparation and one hundred 
years of missions, the doors are thrown wide open in China 
for reaching the officials, the educators, the students, and 
the leaders of a nation that numbers one quarter of the 
human race. We must press our advantage immediately 
in the length and breadth of the Chinese Republic. Succeed- 
ing centuries may not bring back the opportunity of this 
decade. As the former Vice-President of the Senate said 
after visiting these cities, ^'Give us a decade and we can have 
the leaders of China for Christ." 



Some International Triumphs of the Cross 

Bishop Homer C. Stuntz 

I shall speak particularly of those triumphs of the cross 
that have been registered in modern missionary efforts. 

First, your attention is challenged to the fact that the 
Church has been working out God's kingdom on earth by 
the translation and publication of God's Word to such an 
extent that to-day the peoples of the heathen and pagan 
world who are without God's Word in their own tongue 
number not more than thirty millions. The sum total of 
the work that has gone into the achievement of that unguess- 
able total is utterly beyond my power even to characterize. 
It is impossible for you or me, unless we have been in actual 
contact with these difficulties, to have the faintest conception 
of what these missionaries have confronted. 

Think of reducing a language where there was no writing, 
listening at the lips of a barbarous people, catching the 
sounds, articulating them, building a grammar, making an 
alphabet, teaching the natives, and working it out so as to 

190 



SOME INTERNATIONAL TRIUMPHS OF THE CROSS 



enable them to read those characters and thereby find their 
way to the heart of God through the revealing Word. 

One day about two years ago I talked with a lone mission- 
ary over in the north of Africa, and asked him what he was 
doing. He answered me, "Translating the Bible." "How 
long have you been doing this ?" "About twenty-nine years." 
"How many speak that language?" "Fourteen millions." 
"Where have you been doing your work?" "About seven 
hundred miles in the interior." "How do you get there?" 
"Mostly by walking." "Have you a family?" "Yes, a large 
family." "What of your wife?" ^Wife died." "Ever have 
African fever?" "Yes, sir, had the fever eleven times." 

This is the cost to put God's Word where it will be acces- 
sible to fourteen millions of people. 

The entire educational work that has made possible the 
government in India to-day was born in the efforts of 
William Carey, William Ward, Alexander Duff, and William 
Arthur. They lobbied the measure through Parliament and 
it was forced upon India by this band of Christian mission- 
aries. This is one of the triumphs of the cross in India. 

Go with me over into China ; go up to Peking University ; 
go all over that empire, and you will find that they are 
purposing to educate all who are of school age. They pur- 
pose to have the wheels of that whole machinery turned with 
schoolhouses, blackboards, textbooks, and teachers. They 
are endeavoring to do all this work within thirty years ; and 
they have incorporated the cost of it in their budget. There 
is nothing like that program being worked out elsewhere 
on the earth. They have learned from the missionary 
schools, colleges, and normals. 

Look at the victory of the cross in Africa, largely because 
of one missionary who wouldn't stay put. It isn't supposed 
that he was a Methodist minister, for we don't hear of Meth- 
odist ministers of Ohio who won't stay by their appoint- 
ment! That man was a Congregationalist. They told him 
to stay down in South Africa, but he continually beard the 

191 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



cry, "Behind the ranges." That great man Livingstone drew 
back the bolts that shut Africa in darkness, and to-day there 
is not a square foot of territory in that land that is not 
under the Christian flag. There is one branch of the Chris- 
tian Church there that has one hundred and twenty thou- 
sand members. Only thirty-five years ago the king of that 
country was butchering, selling, and burning men; and the 
men of that country were all eating human flesh. 

Some years ago a woman from Davenport, Iowa, started 
a little school in Peking. She said that no girl could enter 
that school who didn't have her feet unbound. This action 
was sneered at by the officials at the time. But since that 
happened, in less than thirty-five years, there to-day exists 
in China an Anti-Foot-Binding Society; and its ideas are 
being forced upon the Chinese women until now the binding 
of the feet is rapidly becoming a forgotten practice all over 
that country. Because that one missionary woman had 
the courage to break away from a cruel custom and start 
the plan. She was a Methodist. 

When Protestant mission effort was begun in South 
America every one of the republics was barred against our 
teaching by laws of the most intolerant character. Mediaeval 
restrictions shut out the reading of the Bible, the preaching 
of the gospel, and all forms of public worship not sanctioned 
and approved by the papacy. Early missionaries of all the 
churches on that continent saw the necessity of changing 
these laws. Under the leadership of men like Dr. Trumbull, 
of the Union Church in Valparaiso, and Dr. Thomas B. 
Wood, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a host of the 
other men, pamphlets were printed, public meetings were 
held, laws were drafted, and finally religious liberty has been 
granted in every country of South America except Peru. It 
is true that in all these states, except Brazil and Uruguay, 
Romanism is still the established religion. The constitution 
of Peru, Article 4, states : "The nation professes the Eomau 
Catholic apostolic religion; the state protects it, and does 

192 



SOME INTERNATIONAL TRIUMPHS OF THE CROSS 



not permit the public exercises of any other." Article 100 
provides that "whoever celebrates any public act of wor- 
ship other than Roman Catholic shall be punished with one 
year's imprisonment, and for a repetition of the offense 
with expulsion from the country for three years." I call 
upon you to note the tremendous missionary victory by 
which, in less than half a century, more than thirty million 
people of South America have been thrown open to the free 
distribution of the Word of God and the unhindered preach- 
ing of His gospel. 

It must be conceded, however, that this religious liberty 
is practically a dead letter in the interior of the several 
republics. The priest, generally through the petty authori- 
ties, can yet hinder Christian workers and interfere with 
their work. Appeals to the central authority usually secure 
a cessation of the persecution for the time ; but these annoy- 
ances are very common ; they are hard to prevent, and almost 
impossible of punishment when they are practiced against 
isolated native workers. 

In 1822 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
Missions began their work in the Hawaiian Islands. The 
natives were solidly heathen. Licentiousness, idolatry, 
superstition, and all other influences of the purely pagan 
society had brought about unutterable degradation. There 
was not a Christian in that entire group. At an expense 
of less than |3,000,000, and within seventy years' time, the 
Hawaiian Islands were Christianized, so that they are as 
nearly Christian as the average State of this Union. 

When the Queen's proclamation was read in all the 
principal cities of India at the end of the Sepoy Rebellion 
in 1858, and the old East India Company passed all its 
rights and privileges in India directly to the British empire, 
promise was made that the British authorities would protect 
all religions alike and would enforce all existing laws. It 
very soon transpired that there were some Hindu laws, par- 
ticularly laws affecting the marriage relation, which it was 

193 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-BAY 



very desirable that the British courts should not uphold. 
Among these was a law by which a child marriage could be 
consummated at the option of the husband on or at any time 
after the bride's tenth birthday. You must know that the 
great majority of Hindu girls are married before they are 
eight years of age. We would speak of such marriages in 
this country as betrothals. But they are marriages 
there, and the only thing that renders them incomplete is 
the consummation of setting up the household. Soon after 
1858 the British courts were invoked to allow an adult hus- 
band to compel his child-wife of ten years to come to his 
home as his actual wife. I leave to your imagination what 
must have followed. Suffice it to say, that missionaries as 
a body, and all right-thinking, progressive Hindus and Mo- 
hammedans were in open revolt against a law fraught with 
so much mischief both personal and social. We began an 
agitation which raged throughout the year 1890-91 in almost 
every part of India, until it resulted in a missionary triumph 
on March 19, 1891, in the passing of a law raising that age 
to the equivalent of fifteen years in this country. 

During my stay in the Philippine Islands the American 
government sought to introduce the Highest Bidder Opium 
Monopoly Law. Missionaries protested. When the matter 
came to a crisis and we needed to cable to the United States 
for the support of public opinion in this country, Chinese 
merchants came to my house and laid a roll of United States 
bills amounting to |100,000 on my table, saying: "This bill 
hands the Chinese community in the Philippine Islands over 
to be debauched and ruined. If it passes, it will not be ten 
years until our business will be at a standstill, because our 
people will become victims of the terrible vice of opium- 
smoking. If you can defeat this bill, do so. If you need 
more money, call on us." The cable was sent. Help was 
secured from the United States, and within one year we had 
secured the defeat of the law in the Philippines and the 
enactment of a law by the United States Congress which 

194 



CONVENTION END— ENTERPRISE BEGINNING 



forbade all retail sale of opium in the Philippine Islands 
except under special prescription of licensed physicians and 
in strictly medicinal quantities. This was distinctly a mis- 
sionary triumph. 

Time would fail me to tell of all the victories. Only he 
who sees the whole extended battle line of the home and 
foreign missionary forces can rightly estimate the number 
and importance of these great international triumphs of 
the cross which are hastening the Kingdom. It remains 
for those of us who are now alive to see to it that the 
triumphs of the decades during which we may serve shall 
be as blessed and as brilliant as those which have been 
achieved in the earlier days of the world campaign. 



The End of the Convention — The Beginning of the 

Enterprise 

Bishop William F. Anderson 

At this very hour the world is in the greatest crisis of 
its history. Fifteen millions of men have answered to the 
colors of the various belligerents and are drawn up in battle 
array. And it is the year of our Lord nineteen hundred 
and fifteen. I am interested during the closing moments of 
the Convention to discuss the question, What is God's answer 
to this dreadful situation? I make bold to give response. 
The one great crying need of our modern stricken world is 
the teachings, the ideals, the spirit of Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God. ^'Neither is there salvation in any other, for 
there is none other name under heaven given among men 
whereby we must be saved." 

I had opportunity last autumn, the first time in my life, 
to look heathenism squarely in the face. What a marred 
visage it was ! As I went from city to city throughout North 
Africa looking into the habits, customs, and life of the 

195 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



people, no other thought was so often present with me as 
that pungent saying, "Almighty God writes a plain hand." 
It seemed to me that one out of about every four or five of 
the natives whom I met bore in their faces the marks of the 
awful sin and degradation of heathenism. Never before 
have I seen so many people with defective eyes, with bleared 
countenances, with deformed bodies. An Italian physician 
who has been practicing medicine in Tunis for more than 
twenty years bore testimony to the universal prevalence of 
diseases of the most loathsome character. There is, of 
course, much of this in countries where Christianity has 
had a chance, but this is in spite of and contrary to the Chris- 
tian religion. And in Christian lands there is a better side 
to life which is bound to prove the saving quality in the 
advance of civilization. The degradation, the filth, the 
squalor, the corruption of life in heathen lands is perfectly 
appalling. As I turned my face from North Africa again 
toward Europe, coming over the blue waters of the Mediter- 
ranean, there grew in me the strong conviction deeper than 
ever before that the need of the heathen countries is Jesus 
Christ. They need His standard of righteousness. His con- 
ception of the meaning of life, the touch and inspiration of 
His great spirit as a means of uplift toward better things. 

Arriving in Europe, I found it was to have this conviction 
deepened and confirmed again and again. One day I 
journeyed from Paris to Havre. That was the most pathetic 
day I have spent in many a year. We saw literally car- 
loads of wounded French and British soldiers who had been 
brought down from the north to receive treatment in the 
hospitals — men with one leg shot off, with both arms miss- 
ing, with an eye gone, with faces and forms horribly muti- 
lated. Every sensibility of my being cried out in protest. 
Can it be that such scenes as these are being enacted in the 
opening years of the twentieth century? We had believed 
that it was too late in the day for such barbarities. It 
seems a horrible nightmare. I felt it then, and I feel it 

196 



CONVENTION END— ENTERPKISE BEGINNING 



anew at every recurrence of thought and memory, that this 
European war is an unpardonable crime against the twen- 
tieth century. After opportunities of pretty wide observa- 
tion during a sojourn abroad covering several months, it is 
as clear to me as the sun in the heavens that the great crying 
need of Europe at this moment is the need of the spirit of 
the Man of Nazareth — His spirit of forbearance, of forgive- 
ness, of brotherhood. The real difiSculty is that the spirit 
of evil is now dominant among the European nations. Vault- 
ing ambition and selfish pride must be supplanted by the 
spirit of the Son of God. 

Certainly it is time that Christian men should speak out. 
Militarism, whether of the German, the English, the French, 
the Russian, the Austrian, the Italian, the Turkish, or the 
American type, must be smashed by the Christian sentiment 
of the world. The man who is interested to revive militarism 
in this day and age of the world's history is an enemy of 
human progress and a menace to the advance of civilization. 
Down, then, forever with militarism of whatsoever sort, and 
on, forever on with Christ's ideal and spirit of world-wide 
brotherhood. 

"The crest and crowning of all good, 
Life's final star, is brotherhood, 
For it will bring again to earth, 
Her long-lost poesy and mirth. 
Will send new light on every face, 
A kingly power upon the race, 
And till it come, we men are slaves. 
And travel downward to the dust of graves. 

"Come, clear the way then, clear the way, 
Blind creeds and kings have had their day. 
Break the dead branches from the path, 
Our hope is in the aftermath; 
Our hope is in heroic men, 
Star-led to build the world again. 
To this event the ages ran, 
Make way for brotherhood, make way for man! " 

197 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 

Turning my face homeward and arriving in America early 
in January, it was to find the conviction of the need of 
Jesus Christ to our times driven even more deeply into 
mind and heart. It was pathetic to note the interest of the 
various nations in the question as to what attitude America 
would take. In every country one of the first questions was, 
"What does America think about this war?" "Where do 
her sympathies lie?" "What will she do to help in the situ- 
ation?" "What attitude may we expect her to take at this 
time?" That America holds the key to both the present 
and the future must be apparent to every thoughtful student 
of the situation. A perfectly tremendous responsibility 
rests upon our government in these critical days. No Presi- 
dent of the Republic since Lincoln has borne such responsi- 
bilities. Indeed, it may be questioned whether ever in the 
history of our Republic such world-wide issues have hung 
in the balance. Every man, of whatever political or religious 
faith, who knows how to pray ought to bear President Wilson 
and those associated with him in the discharge of these fear- 
ful responsibilities very earnestly to the throng of God. The 
great crying need of our free republic during these days is 
for the guidance of the mind of the Master World-Builder. 
So far as I am aware, no two state documents in all the world 
approximate quite so nearly to the ideals of the Sermon 
on the Mount as the Declaration of Independence and the 
Constitution of the United States. It certainly is not too 
much to say that our Free Republic was born of Christian 
Idealism. I am aware, of course, that the finger of scorn 
is sometimes pointed toward us because of our idealism. 
Nevertheless, it is true that this feature of our life is yet 
to prove the saving element among the nations and the chief 
factor in the advance of the world's civilization. It is tre- 
mendously important during these days that our own coun- 
try should be true to the original principles which con- 
stituted its foundation. The way to permanent peace is by 
the path of democracy and not of despotism. So long as the 

198 



CONVENTION END— ENTERPEISE BEGINNING 



world allows the Kaisers, and the kings, and the Caesars, and 
the Napoleons to play with its destinies there will be war. 
The time has come for the rule of the peoi)le; for, after all, 
the kingdom of God simply means the government of good 
will, of the people, by the people, and for the people. If 
America heed not the spirit of the Supreme Teacher in this 
critical hour, it will mean tremendous loss to the cause of 
civilization the wide world round. O that our leaders might 
see the greatness of the opportunity and the tremendous 
responsibility that rests upon them! Would that America 
in this critical period in the history of the world might 
proclaim to all the nations her allegiance to the King of 
kings and the Lord of lords ! 

But let us bring the thought still a little closer. I am not 
unmindful of that tendency in modern theology to minimize 
the work of Jesus Christ; of that presumption on the part 
of many to set aside the remedial and atoning work of the 
Son of God. But where is the man with hands so clean and 
heart so pure that he dare stand in the shining light of the 
great white throne? No, we have all sinned and come 
short of the glory of God. Let us be honest with ourselves 
and frankly admit that every man of us needs Jesus Christ. 
The surest way now for us to serve our generation is 
to cling close to His ideals and to bring every resource of 
money, time, thought, energy, talent, possession to the work 
of the building of the kingdom of God among men. One 
thing should afford us great encouragement. It has been 
demonstrated as never before that the kingdom of God on 
earth is an absolute necessity to the life of man and to 
national and international progress. What was it that so 
shocked the civilized world last summer? It was the inter- 
ruption of the forces which were contributing slowly and 
yet surely to the growth of the kingdom of God. None of 
us flattered himself that the ideal had been in any sense of 
the word fulfilled, but we were working toward it slowly 
and yet certainly, when suddenly the kingdom of hell broke 

199 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



loose over Europe. The crj of the war devil struck terror 
into all hearts the wide world round. It rests upon us to 
preach with a new confidence the absolute necessity of the 
kingdom of God to the well-being of the individual and to 
national and international progress. Men with the ideals 
and teachings of the Son of God upon their lips and with 
His Spirit burning in their hearts are the true world-build- 
ers. Christ is God's yea and God's amen to the need of the 
life of mankind. Jesus Christ with His kingdom of right- 
eousness and purity and peace and brotherhood is the great 
crying need of our modern stricken world. It is as clear as 
daylight that God is building His kingdom of progress and 
civilization about the person, the principles, the spirit, the 
life of His only begotten Son. It rests with us to bring this 
remedy to the world's need of to-day with a new confidence 
and a new enthusiasm. 

And now, in this closing moment, I propose to exercise 
a little unusual liberty with the functions of my office and 
with those members of this convention who belong to the 
laity. With the exception of the young men who came into 
the Conferences at the last session during my absence 
abroad, I have appointed the ministers of this body, some 
of them several times, to their charges. I am about to 
enlarge a little the functions of the episcopacy and to give 
every man of you an appointment. Here and now, in the 
closing moment of this Convention, I appoint every man 
of you, myself included, to go out from this place back 
to the field of labor that God has given us to be Jesus 
Christ's Man. That is my appointment to you regarding 
your money, your time, your energy, your talent — concerning 
every asset and possibility of your life. I appoint every man 
of you, in every relationship, in your home, in your church, 
in your community, in your social contact — as a citizen of 
this great commonwealth, as a citizen of the nation — I 
appoint every man of you to be Jesus Christ's Man. Will 
you accept the appointment? If so, will you indicate it by 

200 



CONVENTION END— ENTERPRISE BEGINNING 



rising to your feet? [Every man in the house stood up 
instantly.] 

Prayer and Benediction 

Our Gracious Master and our Lord, Thou dost witness our 
covenant with one another and with Thee. Help us in the 
closing moment of this Convention to appreciate as never 
before what it means to be Jesus Christ's Man. We recall 
His word to the disciples, "As my Father hath sent me, so 
have I sent you." So Thou dost send us. So do Thou help 
us to be true to Thy great ideal of life, to Thy great spirit 
of service, to Thy great heart of love, to Thy great faith in 
God and man. So do Thou send each of us from this place. 
Gracious Master, to be Thy man in every relationship, in 
every capacity, in every possibility of attainment and 
achievement, in every thought and purpose and motive, in 
every sacred moment of aspiration, in every public duty of 
responsibility and opportunity. Hear us. Gracious Lord, 
and breathe upon us now ere we part a new measure of 
Thine own great life, and may we go from this place carrying 
the impress of Thy life and Thy spirit upon us to be Jesus 
Christ's Man everywhere and always from this day unto the 
end of life's journey. 

The peace of God which passeth all understanding keep 
your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and 
of His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the blessing of God 
Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be 
among you and remain with you always. Amen. 



201 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Convention Policy and Declaration 

Adopted by Unanimous Vote at the Closing Session 

POLICY 

1. In every Methodist home, family worship — using the 
Bible, a Methodist paper, a Methodist hymnal and the Pro- 
bationer's Manual. 

2. In every church a full ministry to the whole life of 
young people, from their recreation to their vocation, begin- 
ning with efficiency in the Sunday school. 

3. An attempt in all churches having immigrant neighbors 
to find a point of contact with them. 

4. An educational and inspirational effort to increase 
benevolent offerings until Ohio Methodism shall reach the 
General Conference standard — "As much for others as for 
ourselves." 

5. A community program for every church, with at least 
one line of activity every year, for the uplift of the com- 
munity life; with the committal of ourselves to "A Saloon- 
less State," "A Saloonless Nation," and the elevation of pure 
men to official positions. 

6. Every member engaged in personal evangelism. 

7. Follow-up meetings during March and April, with 
rallies by cities and rural groups, to carry the message of 
the convention to every church. 

DECLARATION 

A. We reaffirm with ever-increasing conviction the policy 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church as declared by its highest 
court, that the licensure, or toleration in any way, of the 
traffic in intoxicants is a sin; and we proclaim our confi- 
dence and purpose to the making of a saloonless common- 
wealth and republic — Ohio and the United States as emanci- 
pate as Russia. 

202 



CONVENTION POLICY AND DECLARATION 



B. In view of the fact that men whose private conduct 
and personal character are obnoxious in morals, have been 
raised to seats of power in public affairs, we are constrained 
to advise our brethren throughout the State that they give 
their votes only to men of clean, sober and upright living. 

C. We commend to the Methodist Men of Ohio the propo- 
sition to grant the franchise to women — not merely for the 
equity of equal suffrage, but for the increase and unifying 
of the moral forces of the State. 



203 



PART V 
THE SURVEY 



By Dr. Eckman 

Help us, our heavenly Father, to remember the grace 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said to His disciples, "I 
am among you as one that serveth." Help us to re- 
member that we cannot love God with all the energies 
of body, soul, and mind, without loving our neighbors 
as we love ourselves. Enable us by Thy grace, we 
beseech Thee, to exemplify the spirit of Christ and to 
manifest in our daily conduct those great motives 
which led Him to give His life in service for the re- 
demption of mankind from all sin. Pour upon us, we 
beseech Thee, the riches of Thy grace and fill us with 
Thy Holy Spirit, that we may realize our obligations 
to those that are about us. As we see the world filled 
with misery and sorrow on account of sin may we 
steadfastly set our faces toward the needs of men, and 
labor diligently in the fear of God and under the sup- 
port of His Holy Spirit for the relief of mankind, for 
the establishment of justice, for the brotherhood of 
the world, for the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. This 
we ask, in His blessed and holy name. Amen. 



The Survey 



Presenting Some Religious and Social Conditions in Ohio 

Two months prior to the Convention, a four-page survey- 
questionnaire was sent to every Methodist pastor in Ohio. 
The questions were grouped under the following heads : 

1. The Community. 

2. The Church. 

3. The Extension of the Kingdom. 

Six hundred and fifty-eight pastors answered and returned 
nine hundred and eighty-four blanks, and the reports w^ere 
tabulated under the direction of Mr. Clyde F. Armitage. 
This information was supplemented with figures of value 
from other sources. The results were presented on lantern 
slides by Dr. Harry F. Ward, the first fifteen minutes of each 
session being used for this purpose. The charts on the fol- 
lowing pages give some of the more salient survey presenta- 
tions. 



207 



I. THE CHURCH AND ITS EFFICIENCY 

Membership 



OHIO METHODISM 

Resident Members 

N.E.Ohio 145,889 

Ohio 99,737 

West Ohio 127846 

Lexington 3,488 

Cent.Ger. 3552 



380512 



^OHIO METHODISM^ 



Probationers 



N.E.Ohio 
Ohio 
West Ohio 
Lexington 
Cent.Ger, 



2,958 
2,069 
3,548 
115 
142 
8,832 



OHIO METHODISM 



Effective Ministers 



N.E.Ohio 
Ohio 
West Ohio 
Lexington 
Cen-Ger. 



451 
211 
358 
23 

39 

1.062 



The above figures are from the General Minutes 1914. 

208 



Ohio is a Methodist State. According to the last religious 
census the denominational strength is as follows : 



Eoman Catholic 557,650 Reformed Church, U. S.50,732 

Methodist Episcopal . 317,584 Lutheran 45,937 

Presbyterian 114,772 Protestant Episcopal. . 32,399 

United Brethren 65,191 

Figured on the same basis our own church far outstrips 
the Roman Catholic Church in membership. These figures 
give us nearly three times the membership of the next 
largest Protestant church. 

Besides the 380,512 members we have 19,247 non-resident 
members. 

The actual pastors number 1,072, including 23 assistant 
pastors. Pastors average 355 resident members. The total 
number of ministers in Ohio is 1,333. 

There are 2,323 church buildings valued at $18,307,655, 
and 981 parsonages valued at |2,432,295. 

Pastors' salaries, including house rent, averaged last 
year — 

North-East Ohio. . .|1,207.59 Central German f 887.17 

West Ohio |1,188.65 Lexington 1589.84 

Ohio 11,135.66 

Ohio paid toward the Bishops' fund last year |17,771. 
For District Superintendents' salaries |77,575. 
For Conference claimants, |59,658 ministerial support and 
|2,963 benevolences. 

The above figures are kindly supplied by Dr. Baketel. 

209 



In Harness 



Such figures make a good showing, but how many of our 
people are actually serving the Master? 



ON THE JOB ? 

Proportion of Male wmbers OY*>r J8 years 
in 800 churcVie^ 

al work for Christ in 



«HUeCH PCRSONAL MISSIONARY 

50CJe.Tie6 CVAMttlSM EOUCATION 



COMMUNtTV PUBLIC 




32% 



lO% 



3% 




Are tKe rest unemployable ? 



Probably most of these men at work in the other ways are in- 
cluded in the 32%. 

The 800 churches report 54,037 male members over eigh- 
teen years of age. This is 60 per church, or 24^% of the 
average membership. 

439 churches report 927 special workers raised up in the 
last ten years, or ^ of a worker per church per year. 197 
reported 336 ministers. 85 reported 126 missionaries. 71 
reported 135 deaconesses. 99 reported 330 other workers, 
not specified. 

More particularly concerning evangelism — how are we 
going at it? 



210 



What are we doing in evangelism? 



CONSTITUENCY ROLL 
Have you made yours? 

Average r^»sponsibilily 617 





What can you calck if you 
dorxl know what you're fishing for ? 



% of the reports neglected this question. 

Likely some others could agree with the pastor who wrote, 
"Think it is good — don't know what it means." 

Nearly every figure on the constituency responsibility was 
in round numbers. Several churches reported a responsi- 
bility of only 25% to 50% of their membership. The average 
responsibility is 2J times the average membership. But 
the palm goes to the man who replied, '^To the amount of 
|100." The Commission on Evangelism will be glad to ex- 
plain the constituency roll and the best modern methods of 
evangelism. 

Successful revivals are being held throughout the state. 
386 churches report 8,442 probationers now in training. 
This is practically as many as the Minutes report for the en- 
tire state. 245 churches report no probationers in training. 

Every Methodist is responsible for two unchurched 
Ohioans (or for If if we give every Catholic an equal re- 
sponsibility). These figures are derived from the last re- 
ligious census. From the same source we figure that 42% 
of the population are church communicants, 28^% are 
probationers, and 7f % of the population are Methodists. If 
the population is now 5,000,000, Methodists comprise the 
same percentage of it. 

211 



Prayermeetings 



THE PLACE OF POWER 




31 



I. I 



Average Average 
Attendance Part 



A\enAd.nce average 13% of Tnembersliip 
Number- lalving part" 74 of allendance 



Are you sialic or dynamic 9 



The average membersliip in the churches reporting on prayer- 
meetings is assumed to be 245. 



How many prayermeetings are there like the one described 
as running "by fits and starts"? Such prayermeetings are 
not places for generating power, but are idle mechanisms 
consuming power without production. In one church of 
much more than 400 members 15 attend prayermeeting and 
10 of these take part. 



PRAYER. MEETING TOPICS^ 

TTiese are reported 
176 Varied 17EvaTig,ell5tLC 
J69Bible 1 6 Christian life & work 

^7 Spiritual and devotional. 13 Social 
52 5.5. Lesson Jl Temperance 

1 8 Missionary 65ocial 5er\\ce 

0^S65 churches reporhng 

101 use inviled speakers 
396 Kav^* discussion of topics 



There should be more invited speakers and more discus- 
sion of topics. On several circuits the pastor cannot attend 
prayermeetings at all points. 

212 



Are our members attending services? Are they reading 
church literature? 



CHURCH ATTENDANCE 



Average 

Seating 
Capacity 



380 



64% of 

Seating 

Capdc\\y 



Average 
Membfwhip 



58% 
of 

Membmhit 



60% 
of 
Mfmbershii 



Average 


■ 


Average 


Morning, 


■ 


EvffTimd 


AUendance 




AWeniixnce 


Ml 


1 


148 



The difference between the average membership of the 
church and the average members per pastor is accounted 
for by the circuits. 



WHAT DO METHODISTS READ? 

840 churches report 21,810 Advocates. 
1 Advocate for every members. 



What do you read ? 




This assumes 245 as the average membership of the churches 
reporting concerning Advocates. 

213 



lu what work do our cliurclies co-operate with others? 
247 churches report co-operation. 206 report none. 



METHODS OF COOPERATION 

among chixrches 



Union services M4 

Temperance reform 29 

Evan^^elism 18 

Welfare, relief 

6> social service 1 1 



Socials 9 
Chautauqua 6^ \edares7 
Athletics 6* Scouts 2 
Missionary 1 



They cooperate tlnrougK 
Ministers Union 1 6 
Council or Federdhon 1 1 
BroHierhood orMens Union 5 

"In union there is streng^th 



5.5. or Youn^ 
Peoples Societies 

Y.M.C.A. 



There is no hope of saving the world until the church is 
saved from its extreme individualism. It is nothing less 
than sinful to spurn the strength that is possible through 
cooperation 



knd by this time many churches ought to be 



uniting. 



I desire a League 
offensive and defensive 
with every soldier of 
Jesus Christ 



Deaconesses 

Ohio Methodism may be proud of its record in the matter 
of deaconess work. This is one of the yonug departments of 
our church work; but Ohio now has one deaconess for every 
seven pastors. Where else can Ave find a body of workers 
more devoted or more successful? 



DEACONESSES 

146 deaconesses atworkinOhio 
44 probationers 




DEACONESS CENTR.ES AT 

Columbus • Cincinnabi Cleveland 
Bridg^eporb • Toledo 



Methodism's German deaconess Avork centers at Cincin- 
nati. German Methodists are making large use of this ex- 
cellent service. 



DEACONESS INSTITUTIONS 

Training Schools Q 

Deaconess Homes 4 

Rest Honnes 2 

Hospitals and Sani-fcar i A 

Social Settle ments 2 

Home for the A<^ed I 

Girls' Home I 

Campmeetin^ cottag^es 3 

Property value almost ^2,000,000.^^ 



215 



Sunday Schools 



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O 
CO 



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Q 2 



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O ^0 



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fN| On CN 

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ri (N in" 

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c!3 



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210 



The SimdaY school report is eucouraging when it is con- 
sidered how many of the schools are on rural circuits. The 
number of scholars practically equals the church member- 
ship. The greatest weakness revealed by the survey is the 
lack of normal classes. Only 2 schools in 9 reporting on 
the subject have them. 

The average attendance rei)orted in 910 schools is 146. 
The average membership of the schools reporting is 222. 
This means that 1 scliolar is absent for every 2 that attend. 

Graded lessons should be adopted more widely. 

Adult graded courses are now available and should be ex- 
amined by every adult class in the State. Far less than 
96% of the adult classes will be studying the uniform les- 
sons a year from now. More men's classes than women's 
are reported. The figure 1,242 likely is too large — some may 
have reported a men's class and a women's class and added 
the word mixed class as an explanation, when there was 
only one class, a mixed one. Several of the 913 report no 
adult class. 

The adult classes are at work as follows : 

Charity and relief 65 Church Socials 10 

Visitation 24 Evangelism 9 

Social ..20 Temperance and Eeform.. 8 

Missionary IS Institutional 3 

Comparatively few report on this. 

Tlie men's organizations of our clnirches hold the balance 
of power, and in many cliurches are leading the forces on to 
victory. 

217 



Do Yoii use the graded lessons? 




This graded class meets on the porch of a house; scant equipment 
cannot defeat a consecrated will. 

411 say no ; 277 say in part ; 81 say yes. 

The graded lessons are an asset that no clinrch should 
neglect. They are better from both the pedagogical and the 
r eli gi on s s t a n d p oi n t s . 



Are Your adults in the Sunday School? 



NEVERTOOOLDTOLEAKN 

943 schools report \1A2. 
Adult Bible Clas5e5 



rvi E.N'5 


WOMEN'S 


MIXED 


3^5 


35 CZ 


95 



Studying 

Uniform \essor\s4\8 Selected 
Bible 9 Missions 

Normal 2 Social Service 

Lecture 1 



3 
1 
I 




Have you seen the Adult Graded Courses? 



This class at Lodi, Ohio, is going out to place Bibles in the guest 
rooms at the Lodi Inn. 



Bishop Xuelseii says: "The outstandiug fact in the re- 
ligious life of the first decade of the twentieth century is 
the awakenino niiioiij; the men. . . . It is as genuine and 
thorongli a revival as the Clnirch of* Christ has ever wit- 
nessed." 



LM!) 



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The Ei^wortli League was born in Ohio 25 years ago, and 
noAV has 45,518 members there, or one member to exerj 8 
church members. The prevalence of extensive circuits is 
responsible for the absence of chapters in the 2r33 churches 
that report none. 

The average membership on the opposite page is that re- 
ported in the questionnaires. The average attendance is 
68% of this. 

Less Leagues report study classes than those reporting no 
study classes. 

The League is excellently calculated for a trainer of Chris- 
tian workers. It should not fail to function, as in these 75 
churches. 



THE PAPER FOI? YOUNG PEOPLE 
1 Epworth Herald in Ohio 

for eve ry 6 L eaguers 




Good reading helps make ^006 Chrishans 



The Epworth Herald has 7,200 subscribers in Ohio. 

221 



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222 



The figures under the caption "Present Status" are fresh 
from our four schools, Ohio Wesleyan, Ohio Northern, Bald- 
win-Wallace, and Mt. Union-Scio. The other figures are 
from the Commissioner of Education, year ending June, 
1913. While our colleges and universities have half again 
as many students as the average other schools, they have 
only as many professors. In proportion to the number 
of students this is only f as many professors as the other 
schools average. 

Ohio Methodist Colleges have contributed: 

To the Methodist Church : 
522 Ministers 9 Bishops 

132 Missionnries 5 Educators 

To Education: 

19 College Presidents 85 Supt's Pub. Instruction 

12 College Deans 101 Principals High Schools 

185 College Professors 525 Teachers 

To Government : 
1 ^'^ice-I^resident 11 Legislators 

9 Governors 45 Judges. 

8 Congressmen. 

Ohio has too many colleges and universities. The General 
Education Board calls only 27 of the 10 efticient. 



II. THE CHURCH AND ITS COMMUNITY 

NoAV we turn to study the community and learn how the 
church is meeting its neighborhood needs. 



TORE WEAKEWORKING 

Of 948 churches reporting 
431 are in Agricultural communitie5 
528 " " Industrial 
189 " " Mixed 

Will the same program 

do for all ? 

V . 

As reported under the question on occupation. 



RURAL OR URBAN CONSTITUENCY? 

Of 874 churches reporWrx^ 

are in viU\ag,es 
below 500 populalion 

are in towns between 
500 and lOOO 

are in towns between 
lOOO and ^500 

IW^Mare in cities over 

KiSH 2500 population. 

Circumstances alter cases 




The preponderance of small and agricultural communi- 
ties is explained by the large number of circuits. These two 
slides and the three opposite furnish food for thought to ad- 
ministrators. Major operations are unpleasant to consider, 
but some churches ought to be federated or discontinued. 

224 



WHICH CHURCHES GROW? 




Q Q ri 



59% 79% 



ABSENT TREATMENT 

Country Churches in Ohio 




resident pastor 



d pasbor 



How many cKurcKes are 



26% oft 


[lose witK V4 of a Minister or less 


35% ' ' 


- '/3 a Minister 


39^" ' 


" a Minister 


60%' 


a 


Jhole Minister 



Adapted from reports secured by the Presbyterian Board of Home 
Missions covering all denominations in Ohio. 

225 



EuRAL Conditions 



Since our work is so largely rural we are noting certain 
rural conditions first. The first chart on the preceding page 
indicates that the percentage of churches that grow increases 
in general proportion to the size of the church. The third 
shows that the percentage decreases in general i3roportion 
to the number on the circuit. 

Our questionnaires indicate an average of 

2.1 churches in communities under 500 population. 

2.9 churches in communities between 500 and 1,000. 

1.5 churches in communities between 1,000 and 2,500. 

These are too many, except where they are necessitated by 
foreign-speaking or Catholic population. 

151 churches acknowledge that they are facing a decreas- 
ing population in competition with other churches. Whose 
moye is it? 



182 cormnaniUes ouV of 759 
18 of them are MelKodlsl 

REASONS FOR ABANDONMENT 

60 say Lack of Members Tsay Indifference 
48 " " " Support 3 " Factions 
24 ■' Shift of Population 5 " Overchurched 



ABANDONED CHURCHES 




2 Federated 



800 abandoned churches of all denominations in Ohio. 

226 



On this page and the next are special studies of certain 
Ohio towns. Make similar ones for your town. 



A VILLAGE OF FIVE HUNDRED 



FIELD 


AGENCIES AT WORK 


URGENT NEEDS 


Child 
Welfare 


Churches 
Schools 

Voluntary Organizations 


Law Enforcement 
Organized Recreation 
Social Center and Library 


Charity 


Church, Ladies' Aid 
Sunday School 
Epworth League 
Fraternal Orders 
County Relief 
Individual Relief 


Co-operative Plan of Relief 
Plan for Tramps 
Friendly Visiting 


Heahh 


One-fortieth of time of a 

Health Officer 
Four Doctors 


Sewage Disposal 
Water Supply 

Adequate Health Department 


Labor 


Commercial Club 


Shorter Day in Stores 


Civics 




Civic Organization 
Progressive Officials 
Progressive Voters 


VILLAGE OF ONE THOUSAND POPULATION 


FIELD 


AGENCIES AT WORK 


URGENT NEEDS 


Child 
WeKare 


3 churches with good Sunday 
Schools 


Organized recreation 
Supervised playground 
Library for children 
Eliminate grade crossings or 
watchman at each 


Charity 


Organized church effort 
Township relief 
County Charity 
4 Fraternal Orders 


Co-operation in charity 
Record of relief work 
Employment Bureau 
Systematic visitation 


Health 


4 Physicians 
Board of Health 
Health Officer 


Water works 
Sewer system 


Civics 


Village officers 
Town council 


More progressive Council 
Public spirited voters 
Community center Building 


Labor 




Better wages for employed 
women 



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228 



3 of every 10 farms in Ohio have absentee landlords, but 
9 of every 10 churches in Ohio have absentee pastors. 

452 out of 670 churches in farming communities do not 
report any special effort to interest the farmer. 

Special studies, such as these, should be made by every 
pastor in Avhatever class of communit3\ Use the pamphlet 
"What Every Church Should Know About Its Community." 
These may be obtained from our Federation for Social Ser- 
vice. When the investigation is completed, certain impera- 
tive needs will appear and the task of the church will be 
clear. A xerogram of work will then ensue that will cause 
the community to be born anew. Let these suggestions be 
the minimum standard, but make ijoiir program meet the 
needs of your community. 

A MiXIMUM COMMUXITY PROGRAM 

I. Efficiency in Belief Work. 

Avoid All Duplication of Effort. 
Place a Friendly Visitor in Every Needy Home. 
Demand the Highest Efficiency in Local Institutions. 
Cooperate to Secure It. 
II. Moral Protection of Childhood. 

Prohibit Street Trading and Night Work. 
Eliminate the Liquor Traffic and Organized Vice. 
Supervise Commercialized Amusements. 
Provide Constructive Recreation. 
III. Improvement of Industrial Conditions. 
One Day's Rest in Seven. 
A Minimum Wage. 
Shorter Hours for Women. 

229 



The Wage-Earner 



Some mention has been made of industrial conditions, but 
the wage-earner deserves further consideration. How can 
any cliurch call itself Christian that is indifferent to the 
detrimental conditions indicated herewith: 



LABOR CONDITIONS 



detrimental to 

Lack of work 91 



30 
2Q 



Strikes 
Low wa^<?s 
Sunday work 27 
Lon^ hours 20 
Saloons 



12 

None 



wa^e-earners 

Lack of laborers 11 

Foreign labor 8 
Women's labor = 

6? child laborJ ^ 
Unsanitary shops or homes 5 

General depression A 
60 



Our Social Creed 
must be put iri practice 



No church should espouse their cause as such against 
capital as such without just cause, but it should be working 
for both wage-earners and employers. 



A SIN OF OMISSION 1 
No Special EfYbrt 

lo inl^resl the wa^e-earner 

is reporied h\\ 
357 chxxrches oul of 4 &3 
in industrial commxxmlies 

"Is Not This The Carpenter ' 



Community of 5468 population 

Industrial conditions 

As many work more than lOhrs as work \es5. 
25 work mare than 6hr5. tol that works less. 
1 works 7 days to 10 that work less. 
Wages generally paid by checK 
iv]inimum living standard for family *Z.- 
perday '/i male wage -c-arners t le^s. 

Minimum standard for single women 75 i- 
per day. "^0% women wa^e-earners ^et less 



COMMUNITY of 10,000 

Industrial Facts 
1585 male v/age-earners 
1125 get ^12.^ a week or less 
908 get * lO^* a week or less 

40I female wag^e-earners 
168 average \ess than ^4.€P a weeK 
No groups Q-vera^e over ^8.2? a week 

Cordage mills compete with penitentiary labor 



HELPING THE WAGE-EARNER 



EFFORT 



Shop meetings ] 
Labor lectures f35 
6? Sermons J 

Secure employment 28 

Mens' Leai^ues 

Brotherhoods.etc. 14 



Visitation 

6^ Personal 
Loan fund 

& Relief 
Educational 
Institutional 



12 

8 
6 
5 



RESULT 
Secured employment Pastor settled strike 
Reduced hours Added members 



Not all who make an effort to interest the wage-earner define what 
effort is made. 

231 



Immigrants 



The mention of immigTants in a separate division ac- 
knowledges that the common thought concerning them is 
that they are distinct from the rest of us. But are they not 
our brothers? We were not made by a different God. Our 
economic structure cannot stand without them, yet some 
people have withheld their fellowshixj from them. AYe must 
cease to shun these neighbors, and must teach them English, 
citizenship, and evangelical Christianity. 



WHAT IS BEING DONE 
for the ImTnigranl Groups? 

Night Schools Use of church 

English classes Provide Ualian pastor 

Sewings classes Give to City Missions 

Home making Sunday School among Hiem 

Sanitation Camp Fire Girls 




116 

ariswer 
Nothings 



19 other churches report groups without saying whether anything 
is done for them. 

232 



WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR? 

repo r\ed bii 15S chur c h es 
JS3 re)Dort noT-ie 



5P report Italians 
5/ Hiuiganatis 
30 Greeks 
2 1 " Poles 
12 ' Au5tnarv5 
1 1 



7rex>ort Russian-S 



Routnanlarvs 12 
Jews 



Ser\ laris. 
Bohemians 
Finn, 5 

Slavs fsp^cxV.ed] 



53 otKer g,roups 



ARE IMMmNTSNATURALIZED? 

10 percent or les3 
are naluralized 
in groups reported bij Z>1 cKurclies 

Shall theq lear-n cUii^ensHijo 

in Ihe scKool, 

in IKa* cHurcK, or 

in Ihe soXooyx.! 




DO THE IMMIGRANTS 
SPEAK ENGLISH ? 

churches report 
immigrant ^roLtps with 
10% or te5s 
speaking EngUaK 




The numbers 20 and 31 do not begin to represent the actual num- 
ber of such groups. 



The Poor^ Sick^ and Imprisoned 



"YE VISITED ME • 



159 churches visited the 
P oorhouse, Jai or Hospital 





Purpose 
Religious 

service ... 69 



V 



73 5ay they do not visit them 



135 cliiirclies report a i^oor house, 240 a jail, 151 a hos- 
pital, etc. 

151 churches report a hospital. 
43 churches report other similar institutions. 
160 churches report a poor fund. 

641 churches report no poor fund, but many of the latter 
help the needy as occasion arises. 

Churches co-operate with other charitable agencies in con- 
tributing, furnishing workers, supporting a city mirse, gath- 
ering information, flood relief, war relief, and visitation. 



r 



I WAS IN PRISON" 



Juvenile Delinquents reported by 175churdif5 
Discharged Prisoners " ' 105 




Probation officers Big Brothers 
Employment bureau. Place in homes 
Personal visitation Literature 



Social service club Contributions 
Parents' club Asso.Chanties 



To neglect these people is to forget our Methodist histor}^ 
and its record and teachings of our Christ. 

2r>4 



Open or Closed? 



One of the best indications that the church is here to min- 
ister, not to be ministered unto, is the fact that it is open 
several days and nights every week. If that is not the case, 
the church is not functioning as it slioukL 



IS YOUI^ BUILDING IDLE ? 

Of g06 churches 



42(4.6%)ar(e openO ni^ht per week 
555(37%) . . 1 » - 
284(514%)' " 2 nights " - 



68(75%) are open 4 ni(^hts per week 
29^5.2-/) « " 5 ' 

\%.^%] " ' 6 

15(1.5%) - ■ 7 ' " " 




Where is my boy 



Churches are open at night for the following purposes : 



Religious 584 

Entertainment & social 168 

Choir 76 

Church societies 72 

Sunday S. & Epw. Lea 34 

Business 31 



Boys' organizations 30 

Men's organizations 22 

Girls' organizations G 

Young peo., not specified.... 12 

Educational . 8 

Athletic 7 



The recreati(ni of the ^'ouiig ])e()ple needs as much atten- 
tion as their prayer life. If we preach until doomsday 
against destructive amusements, we will not even deliver 
our own souls until we whiten up the circles on llie next 
page. 

235 



Schools and Libkaries 
Are schools and libraries open at night? 



ARE SCHOOLS OPEN NIGHTS ? 



reporl schools oven m^hls 

(averaging 2-9- nights per week) 




Make them community centers 



406 churches co-operate with schools as follows : 

Visit schools 91 Moral support 

Teachers and scholars are in Mothers' meetings 

church 21 Night schools 

Pastor speaks to schools 17 On School Board 

Lecture course 14 Student pastor 

Use of buildings 6 474 report no co-operation. 



LIBRARIES 

report libraries open 



seny no libraries 
or none open nighls 



These averages do not include zeroes in the computation. 

237 



The Social Evil 



With churches, schools, and libraries closed, and with 
scant provision for wholesome amusement and constructive 
recreation, as this survey reveals, we have invited the social 
evil to fasten upon our communities in a proportion and 
strength that few realize. 



THE SOCIAL EVIL 

Its form* 

6Z re}:>ort ProsUlLttiort 
AcLulbery 
lUegihmacy 



3 
4 
2 



Public Solicllation 
All forms or Yes 



461 chxxrches reportln 



8 



These figures show that the pastors do not appreciate the 
situation. Indeed scores mention as the social evil, card 
playing. Sabbath desecration, drinking, backsliding, swear- 
ing, billiards, pool, and dancing. 



FIGHTING THE SOCIALEVIL 
Churches use these methods 

nslruclion 19 
14 
8 
19 
56 



Sermons ^Addreises 45 
Church and other 

org^anizaHons 50 
Social, work 
Legal 



Agjitalion 
Evangelism 
26^0lhfr ways 
221 Nothing, 



238 



The Saloon 



Yet a clay is the saloon with us, and it will not leave until 
we compel it to go. 



SALOOJSS 
8741 saloons 

reporied by 20-4. churches 
732 chvirches report none 

TheSdloon Must Go ! 



The Anti- Saloon League of Ohio vouches for the following 
figures : 

Ohio spends .$100,000,000 a year for intoxicants. 

Ohio spent |2,188,434 on her common schools in 1914. 

The State Auditor's department says that 2c a year on 
each flOO of valuation will cover all the liquor revenue 
whenever the saloons are wiped out. 

The liquor revenue received by State, county, and city 
treasurers is |5,530,000 a year. The drink bill is |100 for 
every |5.53 received in revenue. 

Save the drink bill and give every county $1,000,000. 

66,000 deaths occur in this country yearly due to drink, 
according to Edward Bunnell Phelps, actuary authority. 
Ohio's quota in proportion to population is 3,000. 

89% of the inmates of the State Penitentiary are the vic- 
tims of drink. 

2 divorce cases in Avet counties for 1 divorce case in dry 
counties, in proportion to the population. 

2 people in jail in wet counties for every one in jail in dry 
counties, accoi-ding to i)opulati()n. 

239 



r - ~ 

A FIGHT TO A FINISH 

How churches ^'g^t saloons 

178 By ballot 45 P^sonal work 
145 Temperance a^ilation6'literatare 

or^aniiations 40 Campaigns 

125 Sermons and 37 5.5 and E.L. 

addresses ,3 

"' Anti-5aloon League 5 p.^y^^ 

<y contributions ' 

Watch Us Win! 



SPECIAL PROBLEMS 



306 say Indifference 
120 say Worldliness and immor- 
ality 

83 say Lack of workers 
69 say Too large parish 
65 say Non-attendance 
58 say No cooperation 
57 say Young People 
51 say Liquor 
45 say Factions 



38 say Denominationalism 

38 say Social Life 

31 say Equipment 

30 say Over-cliurclied 

30 say Moral and spiritual 

of members 
26 say Conservatism 
23 say Transient members 

distant 



life 



ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH" 

271 pastors menbi on 

special problems 
and 

report no effort 

to meet it 

4p%r ^^^^ 

f^' ^ up! 




240 



III. THE CHURCH AND ITS WIDER PARISH 



Just as a church apart from its community is a mental 
abstraction, the society neglecting its relation to the world- 
field is not a real church of the Saviour. 



^FOR OTHERS- 

Ohio ^ave lasl year 
to the apportioned benevolences 

or ^.71- ptf»r member 

The Women's Societies 



e average less than i of a cent per day for the seven 
great benevolent works of Methodism. The Women's 
Societies contribute 60c for every dollar that the church 
and Sunday school give to the apportioned benevolences. 

How can we increase our offerings? Those who increased 
last vear did so bv these means : 



HOW INCREASE THE CROP 
of Benevolences? 

New Financial Plan 

Missionary Education 
Increase in membership 
Better business system 
Personal effort 
Laymens Missionary Campaign 



Named in the order of frequency mentioned. 
241 



Write to the Commission on Finance regarding the Xew 
Financial Plan, and to the Department of Missionary Edu- 
cation for its suggested year's program. 



MISSIONARY EDUCATION 

Do you xxse 

A Missionary Committee 



V E 5 

C!> 4 1 



The Department Plans 



Y t S 


M O 


P « R-T 


1^5 


I4S 


1 CL 7 



Missionary HaAazines 





IM O 




115 



Some missionary committees are, as one pastor laDelled 
his, "N.G." Get the pamphlet '^The Church Missionary Com- 
mittee" (Dept. Miss. Ed.) 



HOW RAISE BENEVOLENCES? 

yes No 



Special 
Offering 

E\erymember 
Canvass 

Znvelopes 
Tithers 



4ai 



551 



321 



244 



We ought to return thanks for the wholesome conditions 
revealed, ask pardon for the neglect disclosed, and pray 
divine strength and guidance that we nuiy accomplish the 
whole task presented. 

242 



PART VI 



CONVENTION ORGANIZATION 
AND NOTES 



The Committees in Charge 

The Convention was directed locally by the committees 
indicated below, the Laymen's Missionary Movement of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church lending the services of its Gen- 
eral Secretary, Fred B. Fisher, and its Convention Secretary, 
H. B. Dickson. The program was arranged by the Laymen's 
Missionary Movement, while the registration was managed 
by the local committee. 

BISHOP WILLIAM FRANKLIN ANDERSON 
Presiding Chairman of Convention 

Executive Committee 
Z. L. WHITE, Chairman 
O. F. HYPES, Vice-chairman (Deceased) 
EDWARD YOUNG, Vice-Chairman 
THOMAS JOHNSON, Treasurer 
E. DOW BANCROFT, Secretary 



A. H. Blakesle 
A. M. Courtenay 
G. W. Crawshaw 
W. P. Cremeans 
F. C. Croxton 
J. F. Daniel 
Charles C. Davidson 
W. J. Ford 
Thomas K. Hartzler 
Herman E. Heston 
F. L. Holycross 

E. G. Horton 

F. G. Howald 
W. F. Hutchinson 
D. W. Jones 



E. A. Kolb 
C. D. Laylin 
E. W. Martindale 
H. Oscar Nippert 
C. R. Parish 
J. B. Pergrim 
H. J. Roberts 

E. E. Rockfield 
J. S. Schneider 
David Spencer 

F. E. Thompson 
Charles T. Warner 
Roscoe Walcott 

G. W. Woods 

A. E. Werkhaven 
245 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



Pastors' Advisory Committee 
T. H. Campbell W. E. Fetch 

A. B. Davis H. W. Kellogg 

Luther Freeman P. E. White 

F. J. Baumann 



General Committee 
District Superintendent, one Pastor and one Layman in 
each District 



The Program 
WEDNESDAY, MAKCH 17 

Central Methodist Church 
Afternoon Session — 3.00 to 4-SO O'clock 
"The Place of Prayer in Our Lives/' 

F. J. McConnell, John R. Mott 



Ohio State University Gymnasium 
Evening Session — 7.30 O'clock 
"North Africa and the Moslem World" S. Earl Taylor 

"The Present World Situation" John R. Mott 



THURSDAY, MARCH 18 
Memorial Hall 
Morning Session — 8.4o O'clock 
"Prayer Indispensable to World Winners" W. E. Doughty 
"A Christian Man and His Money" A. E. Cory 

"A Christian Man and His Training for Life Service" 

Thomas Nicholson 
"The Bearing of the War on Christian Missions" 

John R. Mott 

246 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



12 O'clock— Noon 
Parade 

Afternoon Session — 2.00 O'clock 
"Missionary Values" William F. Oldham 

James M. Taylor, Lewis E. Linzell, J. W. Pickett, H. F. Rowe 
"My Call and How It Came" 

F. P. Turner and four Student Volunteers 
"The Challenge of this Hour to the Trained Youth of the 
Church" Harris Franklin Rail 



Evening Session — 7.30 O'clock 
"The Redemption of Jim," motion pictures, W. M. Gilbert 
"The Uplift of a Race" P. J. Maveety 

"America for Christ" Freeman D. Bovard 

"Around the World with a Missionary Camera" 

S. Earl Taylor 



FRIDAY, MARCH 19 
Memorial Hall 
Morning Session — 8.45 O'clock 
"The Church a Community Force" 
Worth M. Tippy, C. M. McConnell, H. B. Fisher, Luther B. 
Freeman 

"Properly Relating the Local Church to the Rest of the 
World" 

George F. Sutherland, J. B. Trimble, Somerville Light, W. 
H. Miller 

12.15— Noon 
Afternoon Session — 2.00 O'clock 
"A Saloonless Ohio" Wayne B. Wheeler 

"A Saloonless America" Howard H. Russell 

"The Christian Motive in Social Reform" 

George P. Eckman 

247 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



"A Christian Man and the Community" Harry F. Ward 
"Some International Triumphs of the Cross" 

Homer C. Stnntz 



Evening Session — 7.30 O'clock 
"The Two Americas" Homer C. Stuntz 

"An Awakened Asia" George Sherwood Eddy 

"The End of the Convention the Beginning of the Enterprise" 

William F. Anderson 

Notes 

INTERCESSION PERIODS 

One of the most helpful features in the convention was the 
intercession periods. These were not scheduled for definite 
hours, but were conducted at each session when it seemed 
most advisable. It is generally conceded that this method 
was far more beneficial than the usual "devotional exercises." 
The prayer phase of the convention was under the general 
oversight of Dr. W. E. Doughty. 

MUSIC 

The music was a constant source of uplift. The men 
joined heartily in every song. The singing was led by Mr. 
L. L. Mix, precentor, with Mr. Rowland P. Downing, or- 
ganist. The Central German Conference Quartette, Rev. 
R. A. Blume, Rev. F. W. Mueller, Rev. A. H. Mueller, and 
Rev. A. W. Klaiber, rendered several selections, which were 
received with great favor. All musical services were volun- 
tary, and the vote of appreciation showed how deeply it 
was enjoyed. 

DELEGATES 

The convention registered 3,456 paid delegates, all men. 
Some women attended in addition, but they did not register. 
All district superintendents of Ohio were in attendance. 

248 



THE CHALLENGE OF TO-DAY 



They met together each day to plan the best methods of 
carrying the message of the convention to every district and 
as far as possible to every local church. 

THE PARADE 

Columbus was astonished to see the men of the con- 
vention on parade. The delegates gathered by districts in 
front of Memorial Hall and marched to High Street, then 
countermarched to the State House. They were accompanied 
by Chief Carter, a Methodist, with a squad of Methodist 
policemen, two brass bands and a drum corps. They as- 
sembled on the steps of the State House, where the Governor 
addressed them. His text was, "Men, take one step higher." 
(This was a request from the photographer who was trying 
to secure the official picture.) 

THE CONVENTION SPIRIT 

There was a spirit everywhere manifest of "deeply spiritual 
hunger and almost riotous religious enthusiasm and sublime 
altruism," to use the words of an editorial in the Western 
Christian Advocate. The old-time joy of religion was remark- 
ably combined with the modern approach to the task of the 
church. Men received the knowledge of the weak places of 
the church with determination to fill the need, and received 
the inspiring records of success with devout thanksgiving. 
If any man came with a superficial interest in Christianity, 
he went away possessed of its most earnest spirit. 

BISHOP McCONNELL'S ADDRESS 

All addresses made at the convention with the exception 
of the one delivered by Bishop McConnell are reported in 
this book. It was impossible to secure a manuscript or a 
report of it. The address gave the convention the right start. 



249 



Oran F. Hypes was born in Xenia, Ohio, December 
18, 1862, and died March 9, 1915. Since he reached the 
age of twenty he had been a resident of Springfield. 
He was twice a member of each house in the State 
Legislature. He was a member of the General Com- 
mittee of the Board of Foreign Missions, a member 
of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, 
a member of the Board of Managers of the Freedmen's 
Aid Society, a member of the Board of Control of the 
Epworth League, and a delegate to the last two Gen- 
eral Conferences. He was vice-chairman of the Execu- 
tive Committee of the Columbus Convention. 

John A. Story, superintendent of the Springfield 
District of the West Ohio Conference, died March 2, 
1915. He joined the Cincinnati Conference in 1877, 
was a delegate to General Conference in 1908, and was 
made district superintendent in 1910. He was a mem- 
ber of the General Committee of the Columbus Con- 
vention. 

The new church at the corner of Main Street and 
Belmont Avenue, Springfield, will be named the Hypes- 
Story Memorial Church. 

A memorial service was conducted at the Convention 
in memory of Senator Hypes and Dr. Story. 



250 



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